Teach Soap

I generally try to make my soap as vegetable based as possible, but am looking at substituting tallow for the palm in some of my recipes. I read that some shortnings (like Great Value) are tallow based. Do I simply do a substitution then run it through the soap calculator? For those of you who use tallow and lard, does it affect your sales?

Thanks!

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Logansama aka Belinda
Nor Cal

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Linda
I know the voices in my head aren't real, but they sure have some great ideas!

OK, so another question: I can buy lard at the grocery store, in the Mexican food aisle. Where do I get tallow?

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Logansama aka Belinda
Nor Cal

I make my own tallow by rendering beef fat I get from local butcher. They give it to me for free, and I give them some of my soaps in return )))

As for sales. I don't sell my soap (yet) but my fellow soap maker confessed to me that she would never buy soap with animal fat in it (((. I think it is personal preference, there are plenty customers out there who don't mind or even love tallow based soaps (like me ))) I label all my soaps even though I just give them away as gifts(so they can see what is in it) and so far people used it, loved it and asked for more ))

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Linda
I know the voices in my head aren't real, but they sure have some great ideas!

I use both lard & tallow. Makes great soap. I also use the GV shortening on occasion and it makes really nice soap as well. You can build your recipe with it in soapcalc.net as they have it listed towards the bottom of the list of oils. Listed as Walmart GV Shortening. I think it's all a matter of preference. And possibly location goes into play as well. I can see in a larger city there being more "anti animal fat" customers as opposed to where I'm at. We're in the middle of ranch country and run cow/calf pairs and people think it's awesome that I'm using beef tallow. People also go nuts over buffalo tallow soap out here.

I use lard & tallow for the base of all of my soaps... I have never had anyone turn up their nose to it.

I love tallow because it keeps forever if properly rendered, even at room temps. I pour mine into cake pans & when hard, the slabs go into Ziplock freezer bags & on the shelf in the cupboard.

Tallow makes getting to trace so much easier and I love the rich, creamy lather & its effects on my skin. Lucky us, here it's ILLEGAL to feed grain to the cattle, so they're all grass-fed (no GMO anything, no hormone shots).

We do get a few vegans/vegetarians thru here (tourists), but most of them don't care what's in their soaps... but they'd kill you for wearing fur... Confusing, I know...

What distresses me is the rising price of coconut oil - they're asking 300 pesos/liter now... That's $15USD!!!

Just want to revisit this...I've done several batches with the Great Value shortening and the soap is really lovely! Its not cured enough to use, but the sample slivers I've used are really luxurious. Also, I notice the lighter colored bars have an almost translucent quality. Very, very nice.

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Logansama aka Belinda
Nor Cal

I purchased beef tallow (essential depot, I think) ONCE. OMG the stench! It made me physically ill just being near it. The smell goes away with saponification, but measuring out the melted fat was very hard for me to do... so I gave it away LOL

I've used bear fat soap before, it was actually pretty nice. Not sure where I'd get the fat, or how it would smell though.

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~~Heather~~
Mad [soaping] Scientist

My main soap is 15% tallow, I find very few people are all that fussy. I have some 100% veg oil soaps an I label them as vegan, however they seem to be slow sellers...probably because they are unscented. I asked a customer how she liked my soap once and she said "I did't know it had dead animals in it...I didn't use it." only complaint ever.

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Linda
I know the voices in my head aren't real, but they sure have some great ideas!