100% beef tallow soap

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I have been working with a local farm to make soap with their beef tallow and lard. After some experimenting I settled on a recipe with 50% lard, 20% tallow, 25% coconut, and 5% castor. I used 10% KOH, 90% NaOH, 5% superfat.
The same customer is looking for a 100% unscented tallow soap. I’ve been looking around on SMF and elsewhere - but I’m still unsure how to tackle this. It seems like it will be super brittle and not sudsy. Higher percentage of KOH? I usually add sorbitol to my lye but not sure they even want that. I’ll ask.
Your thoughts?
 
May I ask what your superfat was? All NaOH?
Here is recipe from SoapCalc as a pdf file. All NaOH. Easy to make. I did insulate it in blankets to gel overnight as I do every one of my soaps. My grandson loves it, my daughter loves it. And so do I! I was absolutely amazed at the lovely lather. Not at all sure what the last minute addition of alpaca fiber did but it did not seem to hurt the soap. I am looking today to see if I saved a bar (which I thought I did.). If so will post a picture.
Recipe:
Lye Concentration 33%
Tallow Beef 31.50 ounces/893.01 grams
Water 8.66 ounces/245.62 grams
Lye NaOH 4.27 ounces/120.98 grams
Super Fat 5%
Water as percent of oil weight 27.50 %
Water Lye Ratio: 2.0303:1
NO FRAGRANCE was added. Grandson requested no fragrance
 

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What a great opportunity, @Vicki C -you are building such a great client base! 😍

I agree that 100% tallow bars are lovely! TBH, they can be hard to the point of brittle, and they can take a little work to get the lather started.

If these customers won’t do sorbitol, I’d ask if they are OK with local honey or maple syrup instead. If that’s still a no-go, I’d do 90% NaOH, 10% KOH so they lather more freely.

Keep the SF low bc 100% tallow (or lard, for that matter) can produce a lot of soap scum. A chelator is nice if they’d be ok with that. 😊
 
With 2% lauric and 6% myristic FAs (according to the SMF c@lc) tallow should, in theory, make a nice gentle lather. These two FAs are essentially missing from lard (0% lauric, 1% myristic, same calculator source).

Here’s another vote for tallow balm/lotion bars. The bars I made a few months ago have become my favorite for personal use, including an unscented bar that I use on my lips. My last order of tallow was on the soft side and after playing around with ratios, I settled on 75% tallow and 25% beeswax. At that ratio and in my environs, the bar is not sticky and glides well.
 
When I use 100 % beef tallow I always make it a dual lye and add sugar for bubbles. I like it very much: it is gentle to my skin, not brittle at all, produces enough lather and bubbles. It is quite popular with those I either donate to or sell.
 
When I use 100 % beef tallow I always make it a dual lye and add sugar for bubbles. I like it very much: it is gentle to my skin, not brittle at all, produces enough lather and bubbles. It is quite popular with those I either donate to or sell
Wow what a great tip. Thanks for the 95/5 ratio. I make 85%evoo/15%neem oil soap yesterday dual lye hot process and it’s incredible
 
Dual lye hot process 85% olive oil soap. Rock hard after 12 hours and lovely lather. Wow
 

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@Vicki C Did you make the 100% tallow soap? I’ve been testing mine, which I made with 10% KOH. It’s okay, but it’s not what I would call lovely. The bar will make lather if I work at it, but even with dual lye it’s a very hard bar of soap. In use the bar is so slick that it’s hard to hold on to, which is not at all what I expected. It’s like hard shiny plastic coated with a film of soap. I wonder if my hard water is a contributing factor? Maybe I need to up the KOH for the next batch?

eta: I’ve been scouring the threads and have seen cautions about exceeding 10% KOH, but based on the firmness of the soap, I think I would have better results using 13-15%. The KOH I’m using has been fine in other soap recipes with the purity set at 90%. On the other hand, I just recently bought a new box of tallow and noticed right away that it’s a bit harder than the tallow I was using over the last year. Perhaps that’s a contributing factor and I’m ending up with less than the calculated SF, which was set at 3% for the initial batch. I could make two small test batches, one with 15% KOH and 3% SF and one with 10% KOH and 6% SF for comparison. If anyone has any other ideas or suggestions, please let me know. I will report back!
 
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@Vicki C Did you make the 100% tallow soap? I’ve been testing mine, which I made with 10% KOH. It’s okay, but it’s not what I would call lovely. The bar will make lather if I work at it, but even with dual lye it’s a very hard bar of soap. In use the bar is so slick that it’s hard to hold on to, which is not at all what I expected. It’s like hard shiny plastic coated with a film of soap. I wonder if my hard water is a contributing factor? Maybe I need to up the KOH for the next batch?

eta: I’ve been scouring the threads and have seen cautions about exceeding 10% KOH, but based on the firmness of the soap, I think I would have better results using 13-15%. The KOH I’m using has been fine in other soap recipes with the purity set at 90%. On the other hand, I just recently bought a new box of tallow and noticed right away that it’s a bit harder than the tallow I was using over the last year. Perhaps that’s a contributing factor and I’m ending up with less than the calculated SF, which was set at 3% for the initial batch. I could make two small test batches, one with 15% KOH and 3% SF and one with 10% KOH and 6% SF for comparison. If anyone has any other ideas or suggestions, please let me know. I will report back!
I made a 85%/15% tallow/neem oil 95%/5% sodium/potassium and the soap is incredible. I live in hard water country and I don’t have any problems. I always add beer powder, honey powder or pine rosin powder to up the lather but it’s amazing. It made the same version in a lard/neem recipe, olive oil/neem, and Shea/neem. The olive oil and Shea are the ones I love the best. I use the olive oil/neem for my hair and it is amazing.
I love this so much I am including them in many of my soaps. It is a great technique for one or two ingredient recipes. I have attached the video of the lather immediately after taking the soap out of the crockpot.
 

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