Recommended Suppliers for the UK

[Bagaudae]

Greeting from Portugal!
I have been looking all over the place and I'm having a bit of trouble finding a supplier from wich to buy tallow!
The only one I found was Soap Kitchen, but shiping prices are way to high considering I would be buying a bit of tallow and a bit of CO.
I have found some portuguese and spanish suppliers, from whom I have bought other stuff with considerably lower shiping fees. But no tallow.

Any advice from you fine gents?
Thanks in advance.

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

One place that could be worth a look is anywhere that sells supplies for bird feeders. Sounds strange, I know, but the only place that I can buy tallow remotely locally is to get it from a German supplier where it is supposed to be mixed with seeds and put in bags for the birds to eat. They have to sell it as "not for human consumption" but I checked with them and it is only so that they are not a food retailer - the product is 100% tallow.

 

[Saponista]

Plumbers also use tallow so you may find it in a hardware store

 

[Bagaudae]

Will tallow used by plumbers be "good" enough for soaping? I was under the impression it might have some other stuff mixed in it that may bad for the skin.
But regardless, I may find both type of store locally. Maybe I get lucky and find something suitable!
Thank you for the insight!

 

[Saponista]

You will have to check the ingredients on the container, but I am pretty sure it is just plain unadulterated tallow.

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

Aye, also on Amazon - but there it is really too expensive. I will also check the local hardware supplier for it, thinking about it.

 

[Kelley]

They are actually a huge company, part of new directions which are global. I only know this because I was looking for silk powder and horsetail. The soap kitchen, who I use often are expensive. Anyway, I phoned mystic moments to see if it was a person in their house selling me cornflour! Lol. It isn't.

 

[biarine]

This is another of my favourites - Of a Simple Nature. Unfortunately they often close down for a while to catch up on orders, but if you catch them open they have a fantastic stock of unusual oils and butters, postage starts at £3.75, and when I used them they were very fast indeed.


Talking about speed of delivery, The Soap Kitchen has a rather weird policy which amounts to 'if you don't pay for express shipping you'll get it when we get around to it', which really annoys me, but the only time I have placed a non-express order I did receive it very quickly. They do give an up-to-date estimate of how long it will take them to dispatch, but then add that that might change between you placing the order and them sending it!

I used soap kitchen but the delivery is very slow sometimes more than a week before they will send. I used New Direction aromatics uk, they are fast but they don't have sodium and potassium hydroxide. It's expensive too.