Feedback on my tallow soap recipe

[Maddiesiler]

Hello all!

I’m new to the soapmaking world as of a few months ago. I got into it for fun, and have since truly become addicted! I’d love to start producing soaps to sell locally to my rural town, and have been working on developing a recipe.

I’ve tested variations of this recipe and have added things, but have overall dialed it in. Before I test it out with my one day sale products (lots more testing and curing and experimenting to go before market — just want to get the base recipe down!) I wanted some feedback.

Yes, this is a HIGH tallow recipe. I live in a rural area where beef fat is readily available and people love it. I would make a 100% tallow soap, and still might one day, but the 10% castor oil is added to bring up conditioning and add a few bubbles. I’d like to avoid adding other oils unless necessary.

I read on this forum 33% lye concentration is best, so that is what I added in this recipe.

I do plan on doing some basic swirls at some point.

I also add honey to every soap recipe with hopes to increase lather. 1.5tsp for the whole batch, mixed with about an ounce of the water (before it’s added to the lye) and added at a light trace.

ALL feedback is welcome. I’m relatively new in the grand scheme of things and love advice!

Specific questions:
Is the lower conditioning number really going to affect my soap? What could I add to increase it, and is it really THAT necessary?

Is my low cleansing number that bad? I read on this forum the cleansing number is one of those that is somewhat up for interpretation. Some soapers mentioned even a cleansing value of 1 would still clean because, it’s soap!

Thanks in advance! And here’s the soap Calc recipe!

 

[Maddiesiler]

Thanks if you read all that!

I also forgot to add, I just bought some Sodium Gluconate powder to use as a chelator. I’m not 100% sure how to incorporate it yet, but I will be adding it to every batch in hopes to not get DOS.

 

[Ekuzo]

You can dissolve the sodium gluconate in the liquid before adding the NaOH.

I think even with castor and honey your soap will benefit from having a little bit of CO ‐ it will be just different, more balanced and with better lather ‐ but if you and/or your customers like it that way, that's what matters. Just make sure you run plenty of tests before you start selling, as you mentioned you would do.

Pay attention to the castor % ‐ too much can add a certain stickiness and/or softness to the soap. I usually don't use more than 5%, some people use up to 7%.

33% lye solution is fine for soap with high tallow content.

As for the numbers ‐ they are just guidelines, nothing more. As you noticed, every properly made soap will be more or less cleansing. IMHO, the difference here is mostly visual, or how bubbly it is. And a lot of soapers actually like to keep the cleansing number low, to make sure the soap won't be too drying to the skin.

And conditioning in soap is a loose term. I think every oil that is not harsh adds to the conditioning (because conditioning only means how mild it is, as opposed to harsh and drying), even if the calculator doesn't count it among the 'conditioning' oils. Palm oil and tallow make a gentle soap, even if the numbers show otherwise and their 'conditioning' is low. That's the best you can expect from soap, because it is not lotion or balm.

Experiment and see how it is, with so many soapers and recipes come a lot of different tastes