Troubleshooting Tallow Soap

[soadsudz]

Hey everyone!

so I am trying to troubleshoot this tallow soap recipe I put together. I wanted to add some more bubbles and lather to 100% tallow recipe so I added a little coconut and castor

Tallow 90%
Coconut 5%
Castor. 5%

super fat 5% lye calculator said 134.57g for 1000g batch I rounded down to 134

its only been cured for a couple of weeks but its pretty drying..... the bubbles I wanted are perfect

I know I know patience! but I've been making soap for a long time with plant based oils and I never experienced my hands being dry after testing it out after a week. Tallow is new for me. I had referenced another thread on here about tallow being pretty cleansing (Does anyone find high % tallow soaps drying?) but it was from 2017 so I wanted to reach out and see if anyone had any more insight on the topic.

Thank you!

 

[lsg]

If you want a more bubbly lather, I think you will need to add more coconut oil.

 

[soadsudz]

If you want a more bubbly lather, I think you will need to add more coconut oil.

the bubbles are good in recipe but the bar is drying

might have to wait and see after a full cure

 

[Kari Howie]

I have little insight to offer because I’ve never used tallow, but when I ran your formula through soapcalc (assuming you were using beef tallow) it showed a cleansing factor of 11, which is pretty low so you’d think it would be gentle and not strip the oils off your skin. However the conditioning number was only 41 so maybe that accounts for the dryness. Also, I know tallow, unlike lard for example, can be used to make candles presumably because of its high hardness factor. I wonder if you add more conditioning oils and/or butters if that would alleviate some of the drying effects of your soap. Maybe the tallow experts can weigh in.

 

[Ladka]

Hi, Soadsudz!
It surprises me that soap with high (beef) tallow should be drying to your skin.
If you usually do not use CO or use it in lower percentages in your formulas I guess CO is the culprit.
I love beef tallow in soap and use it in high percentages. Since my young grandsons like soap to produce bubbles and/or lather I use up to 3 % CO, not more, cause it strips my daughter's skin. To enhance bubbling I use sugar and a SF not higher than 2 % instead.
My current recipes all contain at least 90 % beef tallow and my daughter loves it, her skin being very sensitive and dry.

 

[soadsudz]

Hi, Soapsudz!
It surprises me that soap with high (beef) tallow should be drying to your skin.
If you usually do not use CO or use it in lower percentages in your formulas I guess CO is the culprit.
I love beef tallow in soap and use it in high percentages. Since my young grandsons like soap to produce bubbles and/or lather I use up to 3 % CO, not more, cause it strips my daughter's skin. To enhance bubbling I use sugar and a SF not higher than 2 % instead.
My current recipes all contain at least 90 % beef tallow and my daughter loves it, her skin being very sensitive and dry.

in my regular bars that are plant based oils I use coconut oil at 20% so its confusing to me the only thing I can blame it on is not allowing for a full cure. we shall wait and see!

 

[Tammyfarms]

It surprises me that this bar is drying. I use primarily lard in my base recipe but also have made high tallow soaps and found them to not be drying. Looking forward to hearing what you think in 4-6 weeks. Did you add any other additives?

 

[AliOop]

in my regular bars that are plant based oils I use coconut oil at 20% so its confusing to me the only thing I can blame it on is not allowing for a full cure. we shall wait and see!

Tallow has a much smaller percentage of cleansing FAs than CO, but still enough of them that if you are combining it with 20% tallow, that soap would definitely feel more drying to me. Here is how you can do some loose predictions about that kind of thing.

Compare same recipe with no tallow, and then with added tallow. Add up the total of lauric + myristic numbers for the two; also check the Cleansing number. You will see that for both of these indicators, the total goes up when you add tallow.

If you remember that the Cleansing number really predicts how much oil the soap will strip off your skin, you can predict whether the change to your recipe will create a soap that will feel more drying. With experimentation, you will find the sweet spot for your skin, and those of your users. For me and for many others, that is at the very bottom of the Cleansing scale, not the middle, and certainly not the top.

HTH!