Thinking of Soaping - Introduction

[Nikolye]

I love lamb tallow for soap! We raise sheep for a living so part of agricultural sustainability is that nothing goes to waste.

So clean and pure. grass fed animals, free range, in the sun all day.... small flock. I try to convince my veg friends that it takes no planting, no processing, no bottling, no energy to get it to the shop and its no good in a landfill. Its greener than the veggie soap, why not try it. Nope, they dont care. Its just not their thing and they wont hear a bar. So i make two kinds! (my family uses the tallow soap clearly )

 

[kittensmom]

Lamb tallow has natural vitamins A, B, D and K. When we make into soap, does it retain its original vitamins? I'm not going to make a vitamin claim on my soap but just curious ???

 

[Nikolye]

Lamb tallow has natural vitamins A, B, D and K. When we make into soap, does it retain its original vitamins? I'm not going to make a vitamin claim on my soap but just curious ???

I work for an essential oil company and all the oils we use are created by cold press or distilling at low and slow temps. so the way i figure is if you try and render/soap at cooler temps you have the best chance at retaining goodness from fats and oils. some sciency type should know more than i.. but i like to think it does. I'm trying to experiment with lower temps each time to see what happens, i've always soaped at around 48-50C/118-120F, id like to get it below human body temp by the time i add my EOs. my boss says just past human body temp is when they start to evaporate, so keep it low and you'll still get goodness from the oils. I guess certain oils like high vitamin tallow is what makes some soaps more nourishing than others?

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

The biggest issue is not the heat, but the lye.

While lye does not saponify the unsaponifiables, it does do something to them. If you add in some green tea, it will go brown. It's not really saponifying, but still reacting in the high pH environment.

Does that affect also the 'goodness' of a lot of ingredients? In general I can't see how it wouldn't.

 

[Nikolye]

The biggest issue is not the heat, but the lye.

While lye does not saponify the unsaponifiables, it does do something to them. If you add in some green tea, it will go brown. It's not really saponifying, but still reacting in the high pH environment.

Does that affect also the 'goodness' of a lot of ingredients? In general I can't see how it wouldn't.

Thats a hard one for me. Because working for an oil company, that only sells organic, smaller farm fair trade, no animal testing oils i have a passion for the industry. I'd love to support it and make the highest quality soap. But at the same time, can i afford to put those ingredients into something where they are compromised? not at all, i can barely afford them for medicinal use. I try and convince myself they will retain their goodness, but i do understand the chances of that being so with the intensity of lye:think:. What i do know is that eo's dissipate at higher temps and veg oils get destroyed, so i can at least control that. :neutral:

 

[Barbsbreakingbath]

Lye

Kevin, hi, got my lye from the same place. Maybe because I live in a dry climate those tiny lye bits are very staticky and cling to the rim of the container, the glass bowl I use to measure etc. somebody suggested wiping out the bowl and the rim of the container with dryer sheets. I did that and it helped a little. I might use the flakes next time.