Lard Soap for Sensitive Skin and Sensitive Nose?

[Volossya]

I am looking to make some soap for personal and family use. My mother is very sensitive to scents and at this point has very delicate skin, so I want to make something gentle and cannot use essential oils or fragrance oils.

I looked through some recipes for sensitive skin here and eventually landed on one, but that plan fell apart when I couldn't find any cacao butter (I tried 5 stores!). It seems there's a worldwide shortage. (I'd hoped to use the cocoa butter's natural scent to give the soap some fragrance without any EOs, maybe swirl with cocoa powder once I had a plain batch under my belt. Alas, not yet.)

Currently I have lard, olive oil, avocado oil, coconut oil, and castor oil in my kitchen. I would be able to run out and get shea butter or mango butter fairly easily if need be.

With the loss of the cocoa butter for palmitic+stearic, I came up with a simple lard-based recipe - 60% lard, 15% coconut oil, 20% avocado oil, 5% castor oil, with a 5% superfat. This fits within DeeAnna's recommended fatty acid profile fairly well.

However, I am concerned. I read that high lard soaps are mild with a pleasant lather, but I am worried about the smell. I cannot mask any remaining piggy scent with EOs or FOs, and don't want to smell like pig myself. Should I use less lard? Should I return the lard and spring for the nut butters? Does anyone have any advice for vegetarian recipes without cocoa butter that still produce a long-lasting bar? I'd like to avoid the long cure times of a Bastille soap. I haven't formed an educated opinion on palm products yet, so I would also prefer to steer clear of them for now.

If anyone has any recommendations or advice, I would welcome it.

 

[MrsZ]

Just my two cents:

The majority of my soaps are lard soaps. I personally don't smell any "piggy-ness" even with my unscented bars. They just have a mild, clean, soap like smell.

As for your recipe, it looks nice! I'd definitely try it! You could lower the lard by 10% or so and use Shea butter in place of that 10% as well. Shea butter is very nice in soap and much more affordable than cocoa butter at the moment.

 

[AliOop]

The idea of using cocoa butter was a good one, but the chocolate smell doesn't really come through the saponification process (at least, not for me). This probably is due in part to the low percentage of cocoa butter (5-10%) that is used in comparison to other ingredients. In my experience, the smell of most animal fats doesn't make it through saponification, either - as long as they are fresh.

However, if the lard or tallow smells strongly before making soap, I can smell it after making soap. For that reason, I'm very careful when rendering my fats, keeping temps low to avoid generating more smelliness. The initial dry rendering is followed by several rounds of wet rendering, with added salt. This eliminates almost all of the fat smell.

Store-bought lard and tallow seem to vary from batch to batch as to the strength of their scent. It's been awhile since I bought any of either, but I have learned the hard way that it's better to buy frequent small quantities, than to buy large quantities that sit around too long.

All that to say... I recommend buying some lard from a store with high product turnover, such as Costco, Sam's Club, Walmart, etc. Look for something with a distant "best by" date. Open it and smell it right away. If it smells too much, take it back immediately to exchange for a newer one that doesn't smell as strong. If you aren't going to use it right away, consider storing it in the fridge or freezer to maintain freshness longer than room temp storage.

 

[Volossya]

Thank you, @MrsZ and @AliOop!

I may reduce the lard to 50% - I bought 16oz of it and that would let me get two batches out of it with no leftovers. I will replace it with 10% shea (or mango? debating) as MrsZ suggested.

I appreciate the advice about lard from AliOop. I will definitely smell the lard before I use it and melt it in a double broiler on low heat. I bought it at Fred Meyers, a local grocery store, so hopefully the turnover is high.

Should I reduce the superfat to 2% or so to reduce the unsaponified fats (and hopefully any lard smell)?

 

[ackosel]

I have made soap with up to 40% tallow and 20% lard. My home-rendered tallow is definitely not odor-free, but I do not smell animal fat in the soap. My nose isn't terribly sensitive, though. I think you could try a small batch of your lard soap recipe and see how it works for you and your mom.

 

[Volossya]

For some reason my response has been stuck in moderation for 12 hours (is that typical?), so let's try again. (Also, I realized after the fact that I probably should have put this in the recipes forum - apologies!)

Thank you for the responses! I am glad that people are reporting that they typically don't smell lard in the finished soap. I'll definitely be sure to smell the lard before using it; I got it from Fred Meyers - a big store which should have a high turnover. I plan to use a water bath to melt it to keep oil temperatures as low as possible so as to not make the smell worse. I'm also considering reducing the superfat to 2.5%, to reduce the amount of unsaponifiable lard left over (which may help reduce the liklihood of smell? Maybe?)

I'll be making a small batch - one pound of oils - so if things go badly at least I won't have too much smelly soap to go through.

Looking at my recipe, I realized that I bought 16oz of lard - if I reduce it's proportion to 50% I'll have exactly enough for two batches of soap. I'll make up the difference with shea butter (or mango butter? debating with myself about this), as MrsZ suggested.

 

[ackosel]

For some reason my response has been stuck in moderation for 12 hours (is that typical?), so let's try again. (Also, I realized after the fact that I probably should have put this in the recipes forum - apologies!)

Thank you for the responses! I am glad that people are reporting that they typically don't smell lard in the finished soap. I'll definitely be sure to smell the lard before using it; I got it from Fred Meyers - a big store which should have a high turnover. I plan to use a water bath to melt it to keep oil temperatures as low as possible so as to not make the smell worse. I'm also considering reducing the superfat to 2.5%, to reduce the amount of unsaponifiable lard left over (which may help reduce the liklihood of smell? Maybe?)

I'll be making a small batch - one pound of oils - so if things go badly at least I won't have too much smelly soap to go through.

Looking at my recipe, I realized that I bought 16oz of lard - if I reduce it's proportion to 50% I'll have exactly enough for two batches of soap. I'll make up the difference with shea butter (or mango butter? debating with myself about this), as MrsZ suggested.

50% lard with Shea (mango) butter sounds like a great idea! I typically use 1-2% superfat with high lard/tallow soap. Lower superfat with animal fat soap should help reduce soap scum as well. I do replace 100% of the water in my soaps with fresh, whole goat milk as well, which brings the superfat up a percent or two.

 

[AliOop]

I also agree with keeping the SF low, for a variety of reasons: reduced chance of smelling unsaponified lard, reduced soap scum, and better lather.

However, I do recommend heating the lard, CO and shea together to at least 160ºF, to reduce the chance of stearic spots. Since liquid oils don't need to be heated before soaping with them, you can mix in the room-temperature liquid oils to help the hard fats cool down to your desired soaping temp.

 

[Volossya]

Ok, I’ll definitely use the lower superfat, then.

And good to know about the stearic acid spots, thank you!

Are there any opinions on mango vs shea butter?

 

[AliOop]

For things like lotion bars, or hair conditioner bars, the difference is very noticeable, because mango is much less greasy-feeling than shea when applied raw to the skin or hair.

In soap, I don't find feel any difference. My personal choice is to save my mango butter for making things other than soap, and use my shea butter for soap. But if mango butter is what you have on hand, that's fine, too.