Lard, My New Best Friend

[Susie]

However, if you use both (as I am fond of doing on a regular basis), you get what I think is the best of both worlds.


IrishLass

Do you use it 50/50 with lard? For instance:

Lard 40%
Tallow 40%
CO 15%
Castor 5%

Like so?

I have 4.7 lb to use, and I want to get the "tallow only" experience, then the "tallow/lard" experience.

 

[not_ally]

Morpheus, wanted to post that on another forum I had noted how hard it was to wait out the month and Lilli (helpful and experienced poster/moderator on that board, not sure if she posts here as well) suggested cutting off a thin wedge from the log/bar to hold out and test after a week or so, b/c the resulting slice presents a pretty good sample of the end result after cure. I have definitely found that to be true, they dry out and settle faster. I do that w/all my soaps now, I am an impatient sort. I have lots of little bits of soap melting in all water source areas Skinny Lillis are pretty awesome.

 

[TRBeck]

I love lard in soap. I remember one of the first times I soaped with it- I was comparing a recipe by soaping one batch with lard and the other batch of the same recipe with palm. Needless to say- the lard soap won hands down, no doubt about it. It made such a lovely, creamy/oomphy difference in comparison to the palm that I've been a lard fan ever since.



Yes- there is a tangible difference in a mixed soap- at least to me there is. I find tallow to be harder, slightly bubblier, but less 'oomphy' than lard, for lack of a better term. Or, to put it another way, I find that lard lends a really nice creamy 'body' to my soap that I find lacking when using just tallow in the mix.

However, if you use both (as I am fond of doing on a regular basis), you get what I think is the best of both worlds.


IrishLass

Absolutely +1 to all of this. I use both in nearly all of my bath soaps. I do a couple of other (palm-free) soaps that are entirely veg, but I prefer tallow & lard soaps allday eryday.

 

[Dahila]

When one tries lard in soap, one is happy ))

 

[IrishLass]

Do you use it 50/50 with lard? For instance:

Lard 40%
Tallow 40%
CO 15%
Castor 5%

Like so?

I have 4.7 lb to use, and I want to get the "tallow only" experience, then the "tallow/lard" experience.

Susie, I use a 23% total of a lard/tallow combo in what I have humorously nicknamed my 'Veggie Con Carne III' formula, so-nicknamed because it is a particular mixture of vegetable butters/oils along with animal fats that went through 3 different overhauls before the proverbial sky opened up and I heard angels singing. lol . I use 15% lard and 8% tallow in it. Although it doesn't seem like much when compared to something like a 40%/40% amount, it really does make all the difference in my particular soap formula, which has since become my hubby 's and son's favorite of my formulas to use.... oh- and I like it, too (said with an Irish accent, of course) ;-) .

For what it's worth, one of my earlier tallow/lard combinations (from a completely different formula than my particular Veggie con Carne incarnations above) contained 40% tallow and 10% lard. I made several batches with this combo but eventually abandoned it because my test subjects (including me) wanted something with more fluffy bubbles (we are avid bubble-holics). Other than fluffy bubble factor, it made a lovely soap. You might like this particular recipe because it's low on the coconut:

40% tallow
10% lard
20% coconut
20% olive
10% castor

Although I never tried to do so, I am now wondering what it would be like to make it with the tallow and lard amounts reversed. Hmmm....


IrishLass

 

[Dahila]

Irishlass this is my next project, already printed and waiting for a spare time) We have the same ideas. My tallow is much cheaper than lard so I am trying to lower lard but still have creamy experience and higher the percentage of tallow.