Is using animal fat considered natural?

[innerdiva73]

Hello everyone,
I am new to soaping and have a question, Is using animals fats considered natural when labeling your soaps ( Beef tallow, Lard (pork), Deer Tallow, etc.)

 

[Ruthie]

Yes, they are natural.

 

[squeakycleanuk]

I consider them to be natural.

 

[lsg]

I consider them natural. "Natural" is a term that is thrown around very freely by some in the soaping industry.

 

[souljasam]

Well imo its natural because well it just is. Its not synthetically made in a lab.

 

[innerdiva73]

Thanx for responding everyone. I kind of understood that it would be considered natural due to the fact that it is "not" synthetic and not man made, though it is rendered by people the actual fat is from an animal and animals are from our natural world. I had someone ask me once to which I replied, with my above statement. Thank you everyone again!

 

[DeeAnna]

Veg oils are extracted from the nuts and seeds with high pressure and sometimes heat or solvents. That's about as natural (or unnatural) as rendering tallow or lard, I suppose.

 

[fatfacedcharlie]

I was reading a thread on a wet shaving forum recently about natural ingredients and it seems to be a very emotive subject, ask 10 people what they consider to be natural and you will get 10 different answers. There was a thread on here a while ago about whether stearic acid is a natural ingredient. I would say probably yes as it is a natural constituent of many oils/fats. Others would argue that it is not natural because it has to be extracted from whatever oil it is in. Using that argument, few oils are natural because they have to be extracted from something. Many soap makers will not use anything synthetic because they want a natural product, and yet lye (as far as I am aware) does not occur in nature, it is an entirely man made substance. Although I'm fairly new to this soap making lark, I have come to the conclusion that if you make a soap that does want you want and looks/ smells how you want and isn't going to hurt anyone, any time spent on worrying about the whole natural debate is time better spent soaping.

 

[CaptKirk]

....... Many soap makers will not use anything synthetic because they want a natural product, and yet lye (as far as I am aware) does not occur in nature, it is an entirely man made substance. Although I'm fairly new to this soap making lark, I have come to the conclusion that if you make a soap that does want you want and looks/ smells how you want and isn't going to hurt anyone, any time spent on worrying about the whole natural debate is time better spent soaping.

Lye is as natural as any extracted oils It is made from wood ash. here's a basic how it's done.

How Lye Is Made

 

[DeeAnna]

Um, if you want to make a caustic solution from wood ash, have at it. But commercially available sodium hydroxide is not made from wood ash. It is used in huge quantities in industry and is required to have reasonable purity and consistency. The most common method of sodium hydroxide production is by the electrolysis of brine pumped from deep underground aquifers.

 

[CaptKirk]

True but my point was that it's not an entirely man made thing

 

[Bicycle808]

Making potash from wood ashes is different from lye, but that's a whole different deal.

As for the animal fat/tallow/lard thing: it's absolutely natural. That being sad, I was at WallyWorld today (long story) and the GV Animal Shortening and the lard (manteca) had some questionable ingredient lists/additives. I personally wouldn't feel comfortable calling soap made from that "all natural". But, unlike "certified organic", there's no specific, operational definition for "all-natural." It's purely a marketing term.