Lard and Tallow smell!!!?? Help.

[Tabitha]

My husband is super sensitive to animal smells. I handed hima bar of soap I got in a swap once, he sniffed it & turned up his nose. He said "There is a bird in there." I read the ingredients & sure enough:Emu oil.

 

[applelogic]

My husband is super sensitive to animal smells. I handed hima bar of soap I got in a swap once, he sniffed it & turned up his nose. He said "There is a bird in there." I read the ingredients & sure enough:Emu oil.

that is funny...

 

[Stinkydancer]

yuck, I tried it, still smelled in shower, even after long cure, I dont use it anymore, I like co, oo, po, castor.

I have found this as well, no matter how gently I heated it. It's gross to me...my sniffer always smells the meat. Though I do love to eat- I definitely don't want to smell like it.

 

[tlm884]

I have never had any problems with smell with my lard soaps.

One experiment you may want to try is this:

Heat the lard up until its melted, at that point add a couple handfuls of activated charcoal in it and give it a good stir for 5 minutes or so. Then using a coffee filter, cheese cloth, etc. Filter out the charcoal. This should remove any contaminants in the fat that aren't fats.

You can buy a big thing of charcoal at pet stores for fairly cheap. Don't use the powdered stuff that is used for coloring using the charcoal used for aquarium filters, its bigger and easier to strain out.

 

[Stinkydancer]

Wow Tim I would have never thought of that- and I happen to have some charcoal here for my fish.

I do have to get up the nerve to soap lard again- it's always an epic smell fail for me.

 

[tlm884]

I love lard, its cheap and economical and can be used as a palm replacement. Granted some folks don't like lard because of its origin but it makes a nice hard bar, its moisturising, and its cheap.

 

[Bubbles Galore]

I've got a super sensitive nose as well but if I heat the lard gently I don't smell anything nasty and can never smell dead piggy in the finished soap. Beef dripping is another matter altogether. :roll:

 

[ericllucas]

I saw a soap recipe using tallow that calls for a teaspoon of baking soda stirred in while rendering to minimize the smell. I wondered if the baking soda would come back to interact undesirably with the lye/water mix.

http://www.ehow.com/how_2089083_render-tallow.html

In the thread below, a lady (Hillary, towards the bottom) suggests using common salt to reduce the smell. I think NaCl does something to remove the proteins from the fat and leave it in the yucky liquid or gray jelly on the bottom of the rendered fat. Is it the proteins retained in the fat causing the smell?

http://www.rambivilous.com/rendering-tallow-first-try

 

[ericllucas]

You know, it just occurred to me. If I take bacon grease, I mean a lot of it, and um, filter it imperfectly, then make soap, do you think I can have a soap that smells like Bacon? Or...maybe add 1oz bacon grease PPO at trace to get a nice bacony scent? THAT might just be the thing...

 

[erinevans]

When using tallow, is it a given that one should use a fragrance calculator's strong measurement, as opposed to light or medium, to mask the smell? Please answer soon, I've got my first customer asking for a light smell and I don't want to disappoint.

Data needed. Thank you.

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

When using tallow, is it a given that one should use a fragrance calculator's strong measurement, as opposed to light or medium, to mask the smell? Please answer soon, I've got my first customer asking for a light smell and I don't want to disappoint.

Data needed. Thank you.

When you have made this tallow recipe before, how does it smell?

 

[shunt2011]

When using tallow, is it a given that one should use a fragrance calculator's strong measurement, as opposed to light or medium, to mask the smell? Please answer soon, I've got my first customer asking for a light smell and I don't want to disappoint.

Data needed. Thank you.

Hello and welcome to the forum. This thread it from 2011 so you might want to consider starting a new one going forward. However, I've not used tallow but I do know that the piggy smell of lard does go away for the most part. I do use the higher limit of usage for my fragrance in most cases when using lard. Though, some fragrances are strong at even lower usage rates.

Some people are more sensitive to smell than others too.

 

[Susie]

My soap has 55% lard, and even 0.8 oz lemongrass EO in a 2 lb oil batch will easily control the lardy smell. And I have an extremely sensitive nose.

 

[new12soap]

When using tallow, is it a given that one should use a fragrance calculator's strong measurement, as opposed to light or medium, to mask the smell? Please answer soon, I've got my first customer asking for a light smell and I don't want to disappoint.

Data needed. Thank you.

It's great that you used search, but I agree in the future you may want to start a new thread.

The answer to your question is no, in general you do not change your fragrance amount based on your ingredients. That particular fragrance calculator, the one I believe you are using, lists amounts based on how strong or light the particular fragrance itself is, not whether you are using certain oils.

If you have a request for a light scent, either use a very light fragrance, or use a stronger fragrance more sparingly.

 

[dixiedragon]

My soap is usually 45% lard, or 22.5% lard and 22.5% tallow. I don't notice a smell in the bars.

 

[IrishLass]

I've never noticed any animal smells in my lard or tallow soaps, but that's just me. I've even heated my lard to 160F/71C without it causing any piggy smell in my soap. The scent-receptors in people's noses (as well as the taste buds in people's tongues) are very individual things indeed.


IrishLass

 

[SplendorSoaps]

The recipes I've used lard in were at about 25-30% lard. There definitely wasn't a scent in the finished product, and I thought it made a really good, hard bar of soap. To be honest, I kind of dislike using lard during the soapmaking process myself. It really does make a nice soap, but the processing part kind of grosses me out a little bit. Just a personal thing - probably from all of those years of health experts telling us not to eat the stuff!

 

[Obsidian]

The only time I noticed any smell was in a 100% lard soap and it was very mild, a light scent covered it very well.

 

[grumpy_owl]

I soap with only lard or tallow and have never noticed a dead-animal smell in the finished product. The worst I've gotten are no scent from underutilizing fragrance oils (meyer lemon in one case, blackberry sage in another) and a "soap" smell from an attempt at strawberry champagne.
Melt gently and be patient is the only advice I have.

 

[Dahila]

I have already make 2 lard soaps and two lard, and tallow, all of them are awesome, and no animal smell. not at all. Maybe it was done with some meat in it....strange
Sometimes the knowledge what is in there, make us smell things. Let's think about bacon, I can smell it immediately, maybe depriving myself of bacon does not good to the mind)