Skunk fat soap

[Taxidermy Lady]

I am a taxidermist and skunks are my number one seller. Each skunk has 2-3 lbs of fat. I've started rendering it and made my first batch of pure skunk oil soap.
It came out alright but since I'm so new to this, I welcome any advice before my next batch.
I guess my main question is what oil to choose when using the lye calculator.

 

[Todd Ziegler]

That is a tough question and the answer would be based on the skunk fat. Since I have never seen or heard of anyone using skunk fat, I would stick with some very basic oils, coconut, castor, palm. Each fat has its own separate line in a soap calculator but you will have to determine which fat it comes closest to and use it in the soap calculator.

Good luck.

 

[Taxidermy Lady]

That is a tough question and the answer would be based on the skunk fat. Since I have never seen or heard of anyone using skunk fat, I would stick with some very basic oils, coconut, castor, palm. Each fat has its own separate line in a soap calculator but you will have to determine which fat it comes closest to and use it in the soap calculator.

Good luck.

Are you saying to choose one of the basic oils in the lye calculator?

 

[Todd Ziegler]

Since I don't know the properties of skunk fat, I would combine it with coconut oil, castor oil and palm oil or palm kernel flakes. For the skunk fat itself you will need to choose lard or some type of tallow as its replacement in the soap calculator.

 

[Taxidermy Lady]

Okay thanks! I'll just keep playing around until I get it right.

 

[artemis]

If you mean which oil to select since skunk oil isn't listed: I wonder if you could select mink oil? Maybe mink is a close enough relative?

 

[Taxidermy Lady]

If you mean which oil to select since skunk oil isn't listed: I wonder if you could select mink oil? Maybe mink is a close enough relative?

Oh wow! Excellent idea! They are both members of the Mustelidae family! I'm going to try that!

 

[Hinata]

well what did you use for the first recipe on the picture? 100% skunk oil? usually to get a balanced bar we mix 50-50 hard to soft oil ratio more or less. Are you looking for a bubbly soap vs a mild soap? How did you get your soap in a skunk shape and what did you use to color it black?

 

[Taxidermy Lady]

well what did you use for the first recipe on the picture? 100% skunk? usually to get a balanced bar we mix 50-50 hard to soft oil ratio more or less. Are you looking for a bubbly soap vs a mild soap? How did you get your soap in a skunk shape and what did you use to color it black?

I used the lard on the calculator, and yes, 100% skunk oil. It came out a little crumbly. It still formed a bar and lathers, it's just not very pretty.
The skunk oil is yellow after rendering. A friend had some green pigment I added. The skunk is green, not black.
I'm brand new to soap making, so this is all new to me. I made two big batches, the second came out a little better. I'm starting defleshing skunks again this week and will have about 100 lbs of fat, so I want to go at it a little slower this time and get a prettier soap. Here's a pic of the last two batches. The skunk shape was just a ceramic mold I found on eBay.

 

[Hinata]

are you doing hot process or cold process?
since animal fat is a hard oil, then try adding in more liquid oils. I personally like almond oil but you can use olive avocado or whatever else you have on hand
animal fats make a hard creamy bar. But lacks big fluffly bubble so I add in coconut oil (20% more or less) and also 5% castor oil.

when you render the fat, do you use a wet method? Like you take fat and then add water like at least 50% the amount of fat in a big pot, I use a crock pot. Then cool it. Fat will float to top and water and debris/impurities/ animal smell will be in the water portion. Then you take that cleaned out fat cook it again with a fresh batch of water. If i get very clean solid internal organ fat from a cow then it has no smell and I only do it 1-2x with water. But if you get other bits of the animal that the fat is mixed with meat or collagen then you do that process minimum of 3 times to purify it. Once you purify the 100 lbs then the fat you have is clean and shelf stable. I personally keep my extra bags of tallow in the freezer but technically you don't have to at all and will be good for months on the shelf. I did my huge rendering job in dead winter so to cool off the fat to make it float to the top I just kicked the hot pot outside my house! haha. But now I am running low of my tallow and I won't have nature to help with that.

 

[Hinata]

You mentioned that you wanted to work on the aesthetics of the soap. I think cold process soaps look more smoother and polished than hot process. That is why I asked what method you use. So I would recommend cold process if you wanted them to look prettier.

I feel most soapmakers don't use 100% of any one oil unless they are doing a castille or sea salt or some specialty bar. Since you have a large supply of the skunk oil, then what I would do if I was you would use it at 20-30 percent in the recipe. Then 20% coconut oil. 45-55% olive/almond/avocado and 5% castor to make it have a nice lather. Just put in your percentages in soapcalc calculator and it will tell you the characteristics of the bar. if you want more bubbles then increase the coconut oil to 25-30%. If you want it more moisturizing then you can increase the olive/almond/avocado oil percentage. Some people use castor oil at 7%. Make sure when you calculate the recipe you include a 5% superfat which is kinda a rule of thumb. some people do 0-20% but 5% is a good starting point until you find your preference. You mentioned that you were new so I was just kinda giving the run down so you can feel more confident in your recipe with different oils and what they add to the final product. So just incase you didn't know I am giving you a rough idea where to start with your recipe. I hope this makes sense!

 

[Taxidermy Lady]

Thanks! It really does help! I did hot on the first two batches but want to do cold this time.
I had tried both methods of rendering. Like the cold much better. It does make it a little harder with warmer weather, but I have a few empty deep freezers so I'll put the bucket in there and separate the oils.

 

[Hinata]

The last few months I have been doing exclusively CP. You really don't save much time doing HP it just puts it through saponification which will happen within a few days naturally so there is no big deal. I do water discounts so I don't need an entire 6 weeks to cure with my CP.
Since you have customers interested in the taxidermy then you can sell the soaps to them once you Mastered your recipe! People back in the day used skunk oil just fine for many things. Wear it loud and proud loool

 

[Taxidermy Lady]

The last few months I have been doing exclusively CP. You really don't save much time doing HP it just puts it through saponification which will happen within a few days naturally so there is no big deal. I do water discounts so I don't need an entire 6 weeks to cure with my CP.
Since you have customers interested in the taxidermy then you can sell the soaps to them once you Mastered your recipe! People back in the day used skunk oil just fine for many things. Wear it loud and proud loool

Thank you! I actually sold out in an hour. They were all FB friends and knew it was my maiden voyage. I used it the shower and for shampoo first to make sure they're was no adverse reactions.
I did read that native Americans used skunk oil for many things. I just like trying to use what I can in my work.

 

[cmzaha]

Thank you! I actually sold out in an hour. They were all FB friends and knew it was my maiden voyage. I used it the shower and for shampoo first to make sure they're was no adverse reactions.
I did read that native Americans used skunk oil for many things. I just like trying to use what I can in my work.

I would really suggest slowing down before selling and perfecting your soap. You really do not know how your soap will be in 6 months to a year, and some will hang on to soap, or even if it is a bar of good soap. When I first started making soap 10 yrs + ago while I felt it was a nice soap, it is not a soap I would sell today. I still have those recipes to look back at. Know what you are selling. You do not even know if Skunk Oil is prone to going rancid without knowing the properties of the oil, so your soaps need a long curing time.

Also, Soap does not make good shampoo and can damage hair so please do not recommend it for such use to customers. If you want to use it as such fine, but I would certainly have good insurance covering my backside before mentioning it as good for hair. Some folks have had to cut their hair off due to the high ph of soap and the resulting damage to their hair.

 

[Taxidermy Lady]

I never told anybody to wash their hair with it! I did it on my own hair just simply to make sure it didn't burn my eyes or create any problems. I didn't go to Vegas with the money or anything like that! They basically paid the shipping cost and it was all friends that were with me during the soap making process on Facebook. Most of them make soap themselves and knew that this was my first venture. And there was not hundreds of bars of soap that went out LOL. There were six people that I shipped to.

 

[RacerSpuffy]

I also live in Missouri. I had no idea skunk taxidermy was so prolific, seems like it would take an insane amount of skunks to get 100 lbs of skunk fat. I'm impressed by those numbers

 

[Hinata]

Is most of the fat like above the kidney and within the abdomen? How much does a skunk weigh? I imagine them to be like the size of a cat lol

the recipes I have today are definitely not the same I had before. There are always tweaks and modifications you come up with and you won’t even know until you experiment. If your oil is 100% skunk oil for your first few batches then that means it will have the pros of certain qualities (I am assuming it’ll make a hard dense lather type of bar) but then it will lack other quality. This is why people don’t typically have single oils in their soap. So you wouldn’t want someone to try your product and say I don’t like how crumbly it is or it dissolve too fast in the shower or that it lacks lather and then not buy from you again. So make sure you have tried and true recipes with a product you understand. Some things are not intuitive. Like apparently coconut oil is a hard oil but dissolves Quickly. Olive oil is a liquid oil but cures to be brick hard. These things you naturally pick up over time.

 

[Taxidermy Lady]

I also live in Missouri. I had no idea skunk taxidermy was so prolific, seems like it would take an insane amount of skunks to get 100 lbs of skunk fat. I'm impressed by those numbers

I mount 200 a year. Each skunk has 2-3 lbs of fat.

Is most of the fat like above the kidney and within the abdomen? How much does a skunk weigh? I imagine them to be like the size of a cat lol

the recipes I have today are definitely not the same I had before. There are always tweaks and modifications you come up with and you won’t even know until you experiment. If your oil is 100% skunk oil for your first few batches then that means it will have the pros of certain qualities (I am assuming it’ll make a hard dense lather type of bar) but then it will lack other quality. This is why people don’t typically have single oils in their soap. So you wouldn’t want someone to try your product and say I don’t like how crumbly it is or it dissolve too fast in the shower or that it lacks lather and then not buy from you again. So make sure you have tried and true recipes with a product you understand. Some things are not intuitive. Like apparently coconut oil is a hard oil but dissolves Quickly. Olive oil is a liquid oil but cures to be brick hard. These things you naturally pick up over time.

No, the fat covers the entire body. Cat-size is pretty accurate.
This isn't a job change for me, just a fun pandemic project.

 

[Hinata]

Well enjoy your new endeavors! I spent $400 the last 2 weeks on my soap “hobby” so I hope you Have more self control than I have!