Beef Tallow and Coconut Oil Soap Recipe

[Althea]

I have searched the forums all over and cannot seem to find any posts relating to my question.

Could you please share recipes with me containing STRICTLY ONLY Beef Tallow and Coconut Oil?

I only use these two oils. 100% Tallow is gentle but imo extremely hard and not suitable for hands and body. 100% Coconut Oil soap can be harsh for some and was hoping to find something gentle in the middle.

I look forward to reading your comments.

 

[Ugeauxgirl]

I made one with 85% tallow and 15% coconut oil and it was very nice and gentle with good lather. I think you could raise the coconut oil from that and still have a pretty gentle bar. It was hard as a rock!

 

[AliOop]

I like @Ugeauxgirl's suggestion. If it's not bubbly enough for you with 15% CO, use AVJ for some or all of your water, or use sugar (dissolved in water before adding NaOH), at 1-3 Tbsp PPO.

 

[cmzaha]

It is going to depend on where you like your cleansing number because tallow will up the cleaning factor. I love lard mixed with the tallow at a ratio of 40/20% and CO, not over 18% but we are all different and I realize you only want to use tallow/CO. We all have our personal preferences and I had to make and formulate what would sell well, with good longevity and no dos issues.

 

[Iluminameluna]

If you only want to use those 2 solid fats, I'd suggest you use a sweet component to increase the bubbles/suds or the water from rinsing rice or potatoes. Either of these will add "slip" or the feel of smoothness of the soap on the skin. Or that's been my experience with my experiment with lard and coconut oil soaps.

 

[DeeAnna]

Tallow and coconut oil both make a hard and brittle soap. So if you can only use these two fats, I'm not sure you're going to get away from this issue. In this case, I'd make the soap with 80-85% tallow and 15-20% coconut.

If using lard ever becomes an option for you, I'd suggest 20-40% tallow, 15-20% coconut oil, with the rest being lard. Adding lard helps soap to be plenty firm but not so brittle as only tallow, while still making a soap that is long lasting in the bath.

 

[Zany_in_CO]

There's not much you can do with just those two oils. For future reference, check out the Basic Trinity of Oils to give you some idea of how to make a "perfect" bar of soap using just the basic 3 legs of the Trinity. Use tallow for the palm in the recipe and any vegetable oil you can find locally for the olive oil.

 

[Ladka]

You might wish to make dual lye soap as KOH is known to make softer soap.

 

[earlene]

To take Ladka's recommendation a bit further, here are some links about what using KOH in addition to NaOH in bar soap can do, what to expect & how to calculate:

https://classicbells.com/soap/dualLye.asp
https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/dual-lye-soap-what-is-this-amazing-concept.62022/
I wish I could find the (very old) article or blogpost I used to run across now and then, but cannot find it at the moment.

Dual lye is used in shave soap, and cream soap as well, so it does bring something to the table.

I would agree that if you use additives to enhance suds & lather, you may get better results. You could sub coconut milk or other liquid (aloe juice, Kombucha tea, beer, etc.) for some of the water used to mix your lye solution. Sorbital apparently produces better results for increased bubbles than table sugar, according to some of our members.

What is it about the soap you make that makes you say it is not suitable for hands or body? Does that mean you prefer it for your face? Is it because it is too hard, or is it the particular recipe you use that makes it feel not suitable? Is it too harsh? If so, you may need to drop the CO percentage down to make it less harsh.