Lard V no Lard

[earlene]

My husband called me a blood hound because I can smell a lot of things. Even I can smell when he had a crohn's attack. I remembered I made 50% lard, 20% coconut, 20% olive oil and 10% castor oil. I scented it with vetiver EO as my favourite but when I using it I can't stand the scent ( blend of lardy and the earthiness of vetiver) It made my stomach rotates. But my husband and my friends like it so much and they can't smell the lardy at all. Believe me I am porkaholic I love pork so much mostly the belly pork but I can't stand the smell of lard, I am odd I think . But I will try to make lard soap again but I will scented it with spices and citrus such as, coriander, lemongrass, cardamom, cumin and sweet orange. Because when I cook my belly pork I use a lot of spices and smell delicious without porky smell.

I can absolutely identify with you, biarine! I have always been able to smell a change in both my sons' body chemistry when they are sick, even before they know it themselves. When I was young (and they were young), I thought it was simply a 'mom thing' and nothing unusual. I thought the 'mom can smell oncoming sickness' thing had gone away until a few years ago, visiting my son in California, one day he was sitting in my car and I smelled infection. (Of course, I am also a trained nurse, retired RN.) I asked him if he had any open infections on his foot (he has only one foot) and he asked 'Why? Do you smell something?' Yes, he had a severe infection and wasn't even aware of it. He ended up hospitalized for a month to save his foot. Probably any nurse would have recognized the odor, but the fact remains.

 

[biarine]

Your nose sounds a lot like my Hubby's. I often say he has a bionic nose and I sometimes jokingly ask him if he's sure he's not pregnant, because the super ability with which he is able to detect smells that other's cannot, rivals the amazingly enhanced sensitivity that my own nose developed back when I was pregnant with our son. Thankfully, soon after I gave birth my enhanced nasal super-powers gradually faded away and went back to normal (it was way too enhanced for my liking).

Anyway- his amazing super 'bionic' nose is not able to smell any piggy in my lard soaps. I normally use lard @ 25%, but I've used it as high as 65% (Susie's recipe) without any piggy coming through to him.


IrishLass

Yes I think so we have a bionic nose .
I can't stand the scent, I feel nauseous when I use it in warm water. My husband can't smell the piggy but I can very strongly.

 

[biarine]

I can absolutely identify with you, biarine! I have always been able to smell a change in both my sons' body chemistry when they are sick, even before they know it themselves. When I was young (and they were young), I thought it was simply a 'mom thing' and nothing unusual. I thought the 'mom can smell oncoming sickness' thing had gone away until a few years ago, visiting my son in California, one day he was sitting in my car and I smelled infection. (Of course, I am also a trained nurse, retired RN.) I asked him if he had any open infections on his foot (he has only one foot) and he asked 'Why? Do you smell something?' Yes, he had a severe infection and wasn't even aware of it. He ended up hospitalized for a month to save his foot. Probably any nurse would have recognized the odor, but the fact remains.

Wow Earlene I thought I am thevonly one who suffering in very sharp sense of smell. I am not a nurse but I work in healthcare. I can smell a person when her or his sugar is high and I can smell someone had urine infection or a person have some illness that I can't tell what is it.

 

[dixiedragon]

I can't speak to the availability of lard for rendering in the OP's country, but I do disagree with PenelopeJane on rendering. It's not difficult. If you find a free or cheap source of pig fat and they are willing to grind it small for you (or you can grind it yourself) it's simple to render it.

I have had luck getting beef suet for rendering into tallow from grocery stores that do their own butchering. I haven't had luck with butcher shops, b/c they use their fat to make sausage, etc. Here in the US I've had luck with Winn-Dixie and with Earth Fare.

 

[lenarenee]

I've read a couple of books now that said soap took off then. Maybe it was the process that made nice bars of soap or the industrialisation of the process that made soap affordable for the masses, I don't know. Maybe home made soap didn't have much FO and the commercial one did.

Animal fats haven't been dismissed! Tallow is a common ingredient in Oz soaps.

I think they perfected the technique in 1884 that helped soap become popular.

Are they a kind of "history of modern soap making?" I'd love the titles for I think they'd be fascinating to read!

 

[penelopejane]

Are they a kind of "history of modern soap making?" I'd love the titles for I think they'd be fascinating to read!

I borrowed some books from the library while staying with my SIL about 800km away! Don't remember the titles. Can look in our library and I might recognise something. Really just "how to make handmade soap" with history intro.
Sorry.

 

[Susie]

I can absolutely identify with you, biarine! I have always been able to smell a change in both my sons' body chemistry when they are sick, even before they know it themselves. When I was young (and they were young), I thought it was simply a 'mom thing' and nothing unusual. I thought the 'mom can smell oncoming sickness' thing had gone away until a few years ago, visiting my son in California, one day he was sitting in my car and I smelled infection. (Of course, I am also a trained nurse, retired RN.) I asked him if he had any open infections on his foot (he has only one foot) and he asked 'Why? Do you smell something?' Yes, he had a severe infection and wasn't even aware of it. He ended up hospitalized for a month to save his foot. Probably any nurse would have recognized the odor, but the fact remains.

Whew, thank goodness I am not the only one! Seriously! I have called more than one doctor telling them that patient X has some sort of infection before they had any signs or symptoms, and can we do cultures? There were lots of doctors that just humored me that did not question me after they came back with some nasty bacteria.

And I could not only smell sickness on my kids, I could sometimes identify it before they even knew they were sick.

Can anyone else but me smell when someone takes Tylenol?

 

[biarine]

My own conclusion why it's a big difference between our lard in Philippines than lard in uk because we grow our Pig totally free range organic we don't inject with antibiotics or steroids. They grew slowly and lots of exercise. Believe me when we rendered our lard and in use it in frying in high heat but still no lardy smell. I love to use to fried my eggs or fish. It sad because a lot of my friends likes the feel of soap with lard on.

 

[reinbeau]

My own conclusion why it's a big difference between our lard in Philippines than lard in uk because we grow our Pig totally free range organic we don't inject with antibiotics or steroids. They grew slowly and lots of exercise. Believe me when we rendered our lard and in use it in frying in high heat but still no lardy smell. I love to use to fried my eggs or fish. It sad because a lot of my friends likes the feel of soap with lard on.

Don't be sad. You and your friends are smart and right about lard. I also get my lard from local sources, mainly a friend up in Maine who raises his own. He takes wonderful care of them, they get to live good piggie lives before they're harvested for food, and the meat from them is delicious, nothing like what comes in those styrofoam packages at the supermarket. Rendered low and slow that lard never has a piggy smell. What bothers me the most about this thread is that those who have used lard and know of the wonderful nature of it in soap are being made to feel badly about their choices. Don't

 

[biarine]

Don't be sad. You and your friends are smart and right about lard. I also get my lard from local sources, mainly a friend up in Maine who raises his own. He takes wonderful care of them, they get to live good piggie lives before they're harvested for food, and the meat from them is delicious, nothing like what comes in those styrofoam packages at the supermarket. Rendered low and slow that lard never has a piggy smell. What bothers me the most about this thread is that those who have used lard and know of the wonderful nature of it in soap are being made to feel badly about their choices. Don't

Thank you Reinbeau

 

[penelopejane]

What bothers me the most about this thread is that those who have used lard and know of the wonderful nature of it in soap are being made to feel badly about their choices. Don't

That's not how I see it. There are some on this thread who like lard and some who don't. We all have different reasons for our choices but no one is forcing anyone else to change they are just stating what they choose to do.

 

[Millie]

Can anyone else but me smell when someone takes Tylenol?

Wow!

Who knew we had so many super smellers on the forum? That's a real life super power!

I'm very new to lard so I can't contribute much to the thread theme, but after I got over my fear of smearing animal fat over myself in the shower (yes, I know it's soap now, just had to get over the mental hang up) I tried a couple batches. The first was meant to be unscented. I kept sniffing the oils as they heated in my bain marie, and all was good til the end. The piggy smell was overwhelming and I almost didn't use the batch. Then I sniffed all my oils and realised most of the smell was actually pomace olive oil with just a tiny hint of pig. Just knowing there is lard in the mix makes it smell worse than it is. I added a strong scent to mask it. But oh, the swirling time!! So I did another batch with refined olive oil and just heated the oils til there were a few hard bits left like ice cubes in a punch bowl. Hardly any scent at all, and no worse than vegetable oils. They are still too young to use in the shower so I can't report on any scent returning, or how the lather feels. But I'm hopeful

 

[earlene]

I don't want anyone to feel bad about their choices! I have absolutely no problem with anyone who chooses to use any animal fat for whatever purpose they choose for their own use. I would not want someone else to feel guilty for those choices, either. We each make our own choices for various reasons and should remain free to do so.

Susie, I have not noticed a tylenol odor from people. Now that is an interesting one! But some medications do certainly alter the body odor or the breath or the urine. This shouldn't be much of a surprise to folks, of course, since generally a lot of people can smell garlic on the breath and in body odor. And a lot of people are aware of the changed odor of urine when people eat asparagus. It's all a chemical reaction; some are more noticeable than others. (Can anyone identify? In a public restroom minding my own business and I can tell the person in the next stall ate asparagus recently?)

 

[Zany_in_CO]

The piggy smell was overwhelming and I almost didn't use the batch. Then I sniffed all my oils and realised most of the smell was actually pomace olive oil with just a tiny hint of pig. Just knowing there is lard in the mix makes it smell worse than it is.

Interesting! But funny too. We're a weird species.

 

[cherrycoke216]

Don't be sad. You and your friends are smart and right about lard. I also get my lard from local sources, mainly a friend up in Maine who raises his own. He takes wonderful care of them, they get to live good piggie lives before they're harvested for food, and the meat from them is delicious, nothing like what comes in those styrofoam packages at the supermarket. Rendered low and slow that lard never has a piggy smell. What bothers me the most about this thread is that those who have used lard and know of the wonderful nature of it in soap are being made to feel badly about their choices. Don't

I thought the smell/ taste of lard and pork is from a boar taint....

 

[Lee242]

I don't have a super smeller but I render my own lard and beef fat and usually end up mixing the two when I run short of one. really like both.
So I ran out and waiting to get some more. I wanted to make some for my kids ( going to Mn. in a short time.) Picked up off the shelf lard at walmart. and it does smell not real good. I hope that goes away, I think I might wait till I get home grown Piggy before I make any more

 

[Arimara]

I don't have a super smeller but I render my own lard and beef fat and usually end up mixing the two when I run short of one. really like both.
So I ran out and waiting to get some more. I wanted to make some for my kids ( going to Mn. in a short time.) Picked up off the shelf lard at walmart. and it does smell not real good. I hope that goes away, I think I might wait till I get home grown Piggy before I make any more

You probably should not have used that one. You might smell it again well after cure. I have to say that my coffee and lard soap seems to have a lovely thing going on. The piggy smell is much more faint than my other lard soap. Maybe you could consider a lardy coffee soap?

 

[Lee242]

I make a coffee soap for hands but I have not made it with off the shelf lard. I still think I'll wait for fat from the butcher shop.

 

[soapmaker]

For me, nothing compares to lard. It makes a wonderful creamy soap that is nice to the skin.

I'll always used lard, it's by far my favorite soaping oil.

Do you make a 100% lard soap or what percentage of lard do you use?

 

[soapmaker]

For me, nothing compares to lard. It makes a wonderful creamy soap that is nice to the skin.

I'll always used lard, it's by far my favorite soaping oil.

Do you make 100% lard soap or what percentage do you use?