Lard Soap for Sensitive Skin and Sensitive Nose?

[Sudds]

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.

I use lard in my soaps a lot of the time and I have what my kids & exchange students called a bionic smeller...so I wouldn't worry about your soaps smelling like little piggies. Many years ago, I went to a christening in Czechia and everyone was invited to a luncheon at a village afterwards that was famous for their goose paté and their meals with goose, the food was delicious, I asked our server what they did with all the goose fat and she told me it was a big problem as they used to bury it in big holes in the ground but now have to cart it away in big drums. I asked her if it would be possible to have some and she thought I was crazy! I took four 2 liter containers home and rendered the fat down in my son's oven with a borrowed pot from grandma because they didn't have enough large ones! Then ran to Ikea and bought screw- on lid lard containers, filled them up and refrigerated them, wrapped then pants and pj bottoms and brought the lard home. I was really nervous, my husband was sweating bullets, but everything went through customs with ease. I made great Christmas soap for everyone that year!

 

[melinda48]

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.

Exactly.