One oil for the rest of your life...

[Tigger2]

So many Lard fans!! Which one stinks, Lard or Tallow? One smells like bacon. Gross, so gross. I don't get the attraction when there are so many cool oils out there. What does lard bring to the soap?
My one and only oil would be coconut oil!4

 

[Terri E]

Lard in both cases

 

[violets2217]

1. Lard- sooo nice and creamy!
2. Coconut oil- I just like a cleansing soap& well, I use a lot for dog treats! Gotta keep the dog happy and joints moving smoothly!

 

[Mobjack Bay]

OO, OO

 

[Guspuppy]

CO (salt bars forEVAH)
and
CO!

 

[purely soaps]

Olive oil for soap
Lard for cooking

 

[SoapLover1]

So many Lard fans!! Which one stinks, Lard or Tallow? One smells like bacon. Gross, so gross. I don't get the attraction when there are so many cool oils out there. What does lard bring to the soap?
My one and only oil would be coconut oil!4

 

[kaygrrl]

OO & tallow

 

[SoapLover1]

Who doesn’t like BACON!!! It makes a hard bar that both cleanse and lathers. This whole Vegetable Oil only, other than Olive Oil / Castile Soap, is not what most soaps were made of. They used animal fat ( lard, tallows), as By-Products of processing their meat. All parts of the animal was used. They did not rape & pillage the Rainforest for Palm Oil. When Homesteading, you wasted nothing!

 

[Redglade]

1.) Lard
2.) Lard ( Think: Grandma's homemade pie crust, cake, biscuits, cookies, fried chicken, French fries, pancakes, French toast, egg-in-a-frame, hash browns...

My grandma would eat the lard all by itself, little salted blocks of it. It's wonderful to cook with, but I can't handle all that!

 

[KiwiMoose]

I just realized I could probably search RBO under Dawni (as you suggested) rather than pestering you I’m a noob to forums and I haven’t yet developed my search skills so I’m asking a lot of questions. I hope you all will be patient with me in the beginning.

We forgive you - but only because you play the guitar!

I'm probably OO for soap, and Coconut Oil for cooking. Olive Oil is not my favourite oil by any stretch, but I think I would prefer it as a single oil soap to any of my other oils. Coconut oil is all I ever use for cooking/baking/frying, if I'm not using butter.

 

[DanB]

1. Sheep Tallow - I raise all natural grass fed sheep, and use the sheep tallow to make my 100% sheep tallow soap. The soap is extremely good on my skin, and is excellent.
2. Sheep Tallow - tastes great and is full of minerals and good stuff.

 

[AliOop]

So many Lard fans!! Which one stinks, Lard or Tallow? One smells like bacon. Gross, so gross. I don't get the attraction when there are so many cool oils out there. What does lard bring to the soap?
My one and only oil would be coconut oil!4

LOL, If your lard smells like bacon, it hasn't been cleaned well enough, that is for sure!

For my skin, lard makes much better soap than OO, CO, AO, or another other O. It is gentle, low cleansing, and slow-moving, and has a long shelf life. Many folks with skin conditions can only use 100% lard soap, including some in my family. It's easy to mix with other bubbly oils to create amazing soap.

So my choices would be like Zany's: lard, and lard.

 

[FragranceGuy]

OO and lard seem to be the pantry staples so far with RBO and CO trailing. This tread is as fun and informative as I imagined..

We forgive you - but only because you play the guitar!

I'm probably OO for soap, and Coconut Oil for cooking. Olive Oil is not my favourite oil by any stretch, but I think I would prefer it as a single oil soap to any of my other oils. Coconut oil is all I ever use for cooking/baking/frying, if I'm not using butter.

Thanks KiwiMoose! I’m also not a big fan of cooking with OO. I’ve always thought it was OR (over rated!) BUT I do prefer it when making most Italian dishes and some salad dressings. I use butter whenever I can get away with it. I learned a trick from the Waffle House. They cook their eggs with canola oil. As much as I love butter, I GREATLY prefer the flavor of scrambled eggs with canola.

 

[ResolvableOwl]

Folks – where is the COCOA BUTTER?????

 

[earlene]

OO and OO.

OO has been my go-to cooking oil for a very long time. Although I don't use it for all things, it is the one I use the most frequently and the one I have to replenish the most often.

And I do like 100% OO Soap, so there's that.

To answer ResolvableOwl, I actually like 100% Cocoa Butter soap, but it's pretty expensive for a single oil soap, so I wouldn't choose it as my only oil. I've never cooked with it myself, but I have tasted some really good raw vegan candy make with it & cocoa powder mixed together. I am sure it would bring some problems when used to make salad dressings or mayonnaise, however, so it wouldn't serve well for all-purpose cooking in the kitchen.

 

[maryloucb]

I'm not an experienced soap maker, but as a philosophical answer I'd have to say lard for both. My goal as a human is to source as much as I can locally, which definitely does not include coconut, palm, olive or any other tropical or mediterranean oil. There are, however, lots of cows in Colorado, with a very conscientious family locally that raises their animals sustainably and ethically.

 

[Peachy Clean Soap]

Hey soap heads!

1.) If you could only use one oil to make soap for personal use (100% bars) for the rest of your life, what oil would you choose and why?

2.) If you could only choose one oil to make soap AND it was the only oil you could use for cooking would your answer change?

What a great Q... Personally the jury is still out on this one!. I'm tittering on three. Lard' Coconut' Castor:

 

[ResolvableOwl]

To answer ResolvableOwl, I actually like 100% Cocoa Butter soap, but it's pretty expensive for a single oil soap, so I wouldn't choose it as my only oil. I've never cooked with it myself, but I have tasted some really good raw vegan candy make with it & cocoa powder mixed together. I am sure it would bring some problems when used to make salad dressings or mayonnaise, however, so it wouldn't serve well for all-purpose cooking in the kitchen.

Yeah, it's a difficult question, so nobody expects easy answers (and we also note that it wasn't about economical viability, otherwise you could easily ruin yourself with artisanal EVOO imported by oneself from a small Greek postcard-motif island too, for sure!).

I also once made a 100% cocoa butter soap (as an ingredient for composite rebatch); it was super brittle and crumbled within the mould. I definitely would not choose it as the one-soaping-oil-forever, but it has its uses. On the other hand, if I had to give up either chocolate or cooking … ??? I love cooking, but I can more easily imagine browning garlic in cocoa butter, than desperately trying to solidify a slurry of cocoa powder and olive oil.
Currently my first batch of cupuaçu soap is in the making, it might be a good compromise, R.I.P. economy…

 

[AliOop]

@ResolvableOwl I never thought to try cooking with cocoa butter... will add that to the list now.

@FragranceGuy it sounds like you have yet tried scrambled eggs (and all other things) cooked in bacon grease. Everything is better with bacon!