Cowhide

jewels621 · Jun 29, 2017

Finished up my cowhide soap today. It will do for a test run, but I really want to nail the look of this as a signature soap for our farm. More design tweaking to be done. This was made with beef tallow from our own Highland cattle, and scented with "Old West" from MMS. I'll be trying a different scent next time as well. This was okay OOB, and got lost during the cure. Maybe it will show up again when it gets wet. It takes soooo long to be satisfied with a soap you have in your head :headbanging:!

earlene · Jun 29, 2017

Beautiful!

Do you have cowhide skins on your furniture, too? My aunt & uncle always had a cowhide on their couch. Personally I hated sitting on it because the hair was so stiff and scratchy. But they liked the look and wearing Levi's all the time, guess they never felt the scratchiness.

jewels621 · Jun 29, 2017

We don't, earlene, but we do have living quarters in our barn, and all of the furniture is made of barn wood from an old tobacco barn, and upholstered with kind of a southwest print that reminds me of saddle blankets? (I know nothing about horses!) it's like having a cabin, but we don't have to drive anywhere.

I also may have jumped the gun on not being happy with the scent of the above soap. Not sure why I never washed my hands with it, but after making labels for it, I see that I made it six weeks ago, so I just used it. I get a nice faint smell of leather off of it..... I'll have to check the useage rate and see if I can bump it up from what I used in this recipe. It might be nice after all!

IrishLass · Jun 29, 2017

I love it!

IrishLass

CaraBou · Jun 30, 2017

That's cute! The uneven texture of the soap really augments the look, I think!

chlobue · Jun 30, 2017

Makes me think of my home state of Texas. Great looking soap.

earlene · Jun 30, 2017

jewels621 said:
We don't, earlene, but we do have living quarters in our barn, and all of the furniture is made of barn wood from an old tobacco barn, and upholstered with kind of a southwest print that reminds me of saddle blankets? (I know nothing about horses!) it's like having a cabin, but we don't have to drive anywhere.

I also may have jumped the gun on not being happy with the scent of the above soap. Not sure why I never washed my hands with it, but after making labels for it, I see that I made it six weeks ago, so I just used it. I get a nice faint smell of leather off of it..... I'll have to check the useage rate and see if I can bump it up from what I used in this recipe. It might be nice after all!

That sounds so lovely, jewels. I'm glad to read the scent is coming through as the soap is used. I hope you have luck finding that sweet spot of how much to use (while still in a safe usage range) to get the result you want. I would absolutely love a nice leather scent!

Just out of curiosity, does the wood in an old tobacco barn still smell like tobacco? I am always so fascinated by those tobacco barns when I drive by them in my travels.

jewels621 · Jun 30, 2017

earlene said:
That sounds so lovely, jewels. I'm glad to read the scent is coming through as the soap is used. I hope you have luck finding that sweet spot of how much to use (while still in a safe usage range) to get the result you want. I would absolutely love a nice leather scent!

Just out of curiosity, does the wood in an old tobacco barn still smell like tobacco? I am always so fascinated by those tobacco barns when I drive by them in my travels.

It doesn't at all, but it is the richest dark cinnamon color I've ever fallen in love with. Sometimes it's enough for me to just sit and stare at it, thinking of a time when life was so much simpler, but so much harder. I swear sometimes I can hear the deep rich spiritual songs of those tobacco farm workers coming through the wood. And it's so heavy that my grandkids can't even pull out their out chairs at the dining table. Heirloom quality, for sure!

Cowhide

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