Need to Replace the Beef Tallow

[JohnnyM]

This is the 3rd batch I've made in the last month and things are turning out pretty well. I tried a small piece of the first batch I made which was a 100% beef tallow soap with peppermint oil and french green clay added. Yeah, it's a bit early, but, of course, I was anxious. It's really nice. I'm happy so far.

I'd like to see if I can replace the beef tallow with "something else" to only use plant-based oils. Here's what I made last night. This was for a 500-gram batch using a 33.333% lye concentration (141.8 grams of water and 69.84 grams of lye).

Beef Tallow - 30%
Coconut oil (92degee) -23%
Olive Oil 0 20%
Avocado Oil - 10%
Shea Butter - 10%
Castor Oil - 7%

Any thoughts or feedback on the recipe are gratefully appreciated.

 

[Todd Ziegler]

If you want to replace the tallow with a plant based oil at 30% you may end up with a soap that will take a long time to cure. You have 20% OO right now and you don't want to end up with 60% soft oils. You could use babassu oil instead of the tallow but with the Shea, coconut and the babassu you might end up with a harder bar than you want. You might consider reformulating your recipe. I personally use 45-50% lard in all my recipes but you can also consider rice bran, Safflower or canola. Just run it through your soap calculator for each change you make.

 

[shunt2011]

If you want to replace the tallow with a plant based oil at 30% you may end up with a soap that will take a long time to cure. You have 20% OO right now and you don't want to end up with 60% soft oils. You could use babassu oil instead of the tallow but with the Shea, coconut and the babassu you might end up with a harder bar than you want. You might consider reformulating your recipe. I personally use 45-50% lard in all my recipes but you can also consider rice bran, Safflower or canola. Just run it through your soap calculator for each change you make.

Babassu is a replacement for Coconut Oil or to use in conjunction. It's a cleansing oil as well as PKO.

@JohnnyM You could increase your Shea and add Cocoa Butter or use Palm oil. Some are having good luck with Soy Wax. I don't use any soy in my products, personal choice. There have been some recipes shared for vegan soap on the forum.

 

[JohnnyM]

Thanks, Todd.

I'll run a couple of tests with Babassu instead of tallow.

Perhaps I should be more concerned about hardness but for now, that's not an issue.

I'll give a try with the Safflower and canola as well. I've not used either as well as rice bran, but those are all welcome suggestions.

Personally, I have no issue with tallow. I like how it turned out in my (very few) previous recipes, but I'm just curious about an all-plant option.

 

[Todd Ziegler]

Babassu is a replacement for Coconut Oil or to use in conjunction. It's a cleansing oil as well as PKO.

@JohnnyM You could increase your Shea and add Cocoa Butter or use Palm oil. Some are having good luck with Soy Wax. I don't use any soy in my products, personal choice. There have been some recipes shared for vegan soap on the forum.

Thanks for catching that mistake. I meant to say that and completely forgot to.

 

[Todd Ziegler]

Thanks, Todd.

I'll run a couple of tests with Babassu instead of tallow.

Perhaps I should be more concerned about hardness but for now, that's not an issue.

I'll give a try with the Safflower and canola as well. I've not used either as well as rice bran, but those are all welcome suggestions.

Personally, I have no issue with tallow. I like how it turned out in my (very few) previous recipes, but I'm just curious about an all-plant option.

Many people make vegan soaps and they work just fine.

Safflower, rice and canola oil are good replacements for olive oil but you can use them all together too.

I have settled on a lard recipe that is working really good for me. However I will alternate between olive oil, safflower oil and rice bran oil. I change it for a couple different reasons, cost is one, availability is the other. High oleic safflower oil is my favorite but it really is a matter of opinion.

If you use sunflower or safflower oil, make sure you get the high oleic sunflower/safflower oil variety, because they work the best. Depending upon the soap calculator that you are using, it should give you the option to select the high oleic types.

 

[JohnnyM]

Very cool!

I think that gives me lots of options.

Personally, I like the tallow, but I would like an all plant-based option, although I'm not going to kill myself trying to get there.

I've got some babassu oil and I made a batch with that AND the tallow last week. VERY soft; going to take much longer to cure than the tallow-only batch I made as my first attempt. But, then I used a lot of soft oils as well.

Oh, well, I enjoy the learning and I haven't made a batch I couldn't use yet!

Thanks again.

 

[Arimara]

Very cool!

I think that gives me lots of options.

Personally, I like the tallow, but I would like an all plant-based option, although I'm not going to kill myself trying to get there.

I've got some babassu oil and I made a batch with that AND the tallow last week. VERY soft; going to take much longer to cure than the tallow-only batch I made as my first attempt. But, then I used a lot of soft oils as well.

Oh, well, I enjoy the learning and I haven't made a batch I couldn't use yet!

Thanks again.

I really hope you either upped your superfat or decreased the coconut oil in your recipe. Babassu is slightly more cleansing than coconut oil bit it can be more gentle too.

 

[DeeAnna]

"...Safflower, rice and canola oil are good replacements for olive oil ..."

It's true the high oleic (HO) version of safflower and canola are alternatives to olive oil. You mentioned that in your second paragraph, @Todd Ziegler, but I wanted to bring that point out more clearly because many beginning soap makers don't realize there are different versions of some types of fats.

The normal (high linoleic versions) of saff and canola are not good subs, however. Rice bran oil is higher in linoleic acid than olive, so you want to keep that in mind, but many use RBO as an olive alternative as well. Other high oleic fats are sweet almond oil and HO sunflower. These fats when used in soap increase the water solubility, add creamy lather, can increase the mildness (that perception varies from person to person), and may make a physically softer soap, although softness is not always a given.

Tallow is a high stearic and palmitic fat. Lard, palm, soy wax, and butters (shea, cocoa, etc) are reasonable subs for tallow. These fats when used in soap add physical hardness, reduced solubility (soap lasts longer), creamy lather, and mildness to the skin.

I personally don't think babassu or coconut are reasonable alternatives for tallow. These two fats along with palm kernel oil are high myristic and lauric fats. The "cleansing" fats so to speak. They add physical hardness, fluffy lather, as well as higher water solubility (soap doesn't last as long). Soap made with these fats may be overly harsh to the skin -- overly cleansing, in other words -- in high amounts. That's why people tend to use them in low to moderate amounts.

 

[Todd Ziegler]

Thanks Deanna, I am on my phone and couldn't write that much out. I know I should have.

 

[HowieRoll]

Hi JohnnyM,

Your recipe in the original post is very similar variation of a recipe I made for a few years (although I no longer use castor oil), until I decided to check out soy wax a year ago. I have to say, I haven't looked back (nor do I miss rendering beef tallow). The soap stays harder/more durable in the shower, the lather is fantastic, and it's also been milder on my skin - just about everything DeeAnna says it is. I love it.

I did a straight replacement of SW with my recipe (25%), and use Soybean, Fully Hydrogenated on SoapCalc.net to determine NaOH amounts.

The soy wax I use is GW415, as it does not contain additives. I've purchased it from AMAZON but last time purchased it directly from VIRGINIA CANDLE SUPPLY.

There is a lot of great information on this forum about using soy wax, which is what inspired me to try it. And I'm really glad I did!

 

[JohnnyM]

Thanks, Angela.

It's interesting you mention Soy Wax because your comment is about the third time I've seen something about it in just the last day or two.

I'm going to play around with my recipe replacing the beef tallow with soy wax and see what I come up with.

And, thank you for the sourcing!

If anyone has a recipe to share that uses soy wax and no animal product, I'd very much appreciate the share.

 

[HowieRoll]

This is a pretty typical recipe for me nowadays:

30% Olive Oil
25% Soy Wax
20% Coconut Oil
15% Sunflower Oil (high oleic)
10% Shea Butter

38% Lye concentration
5% oil weight sugar added (dissolved in water taken from batch total, then added to lye)

I also soap in the 120-130°F range and typically do not have issues with acceleration, although certain FOs or EOs might affect it. Also, upon initial stickblending I will often get a fast false trace, which will smooth out with a little more mixing. Just don't be fooled if it happens (even though I still am almost ever time).

 

[Todd Ziegler]

This is a pretty typical recipe for me nowadays:

30% Olive Oil
25% Soy Wax
20% Coconut Oil
15% Sunflower Oil (high oleic)
10% Shea Butter

38% Lye concentration
5% oil weight sugar added (dissolved in water taken from batch total, then added to lye)

I also soap in the 120-130°F range and typically do not have issues with acceleration, although certain FOs or EOs might affect it. Also, upon initial stickblending I will often get a fast false trace, which will smooth out with a little more mixing. Just don't be fooled if it happens (even though I still am almost ever time).

Clarifying question, did you replace lard/beef tallow with the soy wax? I live in an agriculture community and using soy wax would be great selling point. Considering we are farmers ourselves.

 

[HowieRoll]

Clarifying question, did you replace lard/beef tallow with the soy wax? I live in an agriculture community and using soy wax would be great selling point. Considering we are farmers ourselves.

Yes, I replaced it entirely with soy wax. I used to use beef tallow at 20-25% of the recipe (early on when using it went as high as 30-35%, but found the soap smelled too beefy) and now don't use it at all.

 

[cmzaha]

Tallow also contains Lauric and Myristic Acid although in much lower percentages compared to the cleansing oils, Babassu, CO, and PKO, so you also want to watch the cleansing number if it concerns you. I do not use Babassu in soap because it is expensive and it is lovely in other products.

I love tallow with lard for a nice creamy long-lasting soap. I use tallow as the higher percentage of the tallow/lard combo. Since I do not use soy I still stick to palm for my veggie soaps.

 

[lsg]

I may have missed anyone mentioning palm oil as a plant based substitute for tallow. Just make sure that the source for palm oil is sustainable.