Tallow and Pine Tar

[blondeNight827]

Hello all, this forum has been very helpful as I begin CP soapmaking!

I've made 2 soaps so far, one 100% olive oil and one from a recipe I have in a book. I'm planning on trying to make a third soap this weekend, which I want to try to make pine tar soap with the oil being 100% tallow. Looking at recipes online, I'm not seeing any that are just 100% tallow with the pine tar, they're usually a blend including coconut oil with tallow and olive oil or some other similar blend.

I'm mostly just curious why this is? I would just go ahead and run a 100% tallow experiment for learning purposes but I don't want to accidentally blow something up or something wild like that haha

 

[AliOop]

Hi there, and welcome to the soaping addiction errrr, hobby.

You can certainly make a soap with only tallow and pine tar, which technically would not be 100% tallow, right? However, tallow only contains a little, and pine tar contain none of the fatty acids that create bubbly lather. That means the soap won't lather as easily as you might like... and that's why most folks add a bit of coconut oil, palm kernel oil (not the same as just palm oil), or babassu oil. That recipe would probably look something like this:

65% tallow
20% coconut oil (or PKO, or babassu oil)
15% pine tar

However, if you don't want to use a bubble-creating oil, you could try adding some form of sugar instead. You would dissolve that in your batch water before adding the NaOH. I like using it at the rate of 2% of oils. That recipe might look like this:

85% tallow
15% pine tar
sugar at 2% of oil weight

For either recipe, I'd make a small batch, like 500g, so you don't end up with a lot of soap you may not like. Also, pine tar is tricky stuff in soaping; starting small will mean less stress as you try to get it into the mold before it is solid.

If you keep the SF no more than 3%, that will help reduce soap scum, potential rancidity, and the beefy smell that tallow soaps can sometimes have - although the pine tar will probably overwhelm that anyway. Since you are a new soaper, I'm also going to recommend that you change to using lye concentration and set it at 33%, rather than using the default setting of 38% water-as-percent-of-oils. It's an easy setting to change in whatever soap calculator you may be using, and it will give you more consistent results over time, especially if you change batch sizes.

HTH, and please let us know what you try, and how it turns out!

 

[DeeAnna]

The reasons why you're seeing more recipes that have a blend of fats versus a soap made with only one fat is because a soap made with a blend of fats tends to perform better -- milder to the skin, good lather, good longevity -- than a soap made with one fat. One-fat soaps tend to be strong in one of these ideal characteristics, but not as strong in the others.

That's not to say you can't make soap with only tallow (plus pine tar) or any other single fat that you want. Many batches of 100% tallow soap (or 100% olive, 100% lard, etc.) have been made over the years, so you won't be alone in doing this.

 

[blondeNight827]

Thank you guys for your replies!! The way you both explained it makes a lot of sense!