With a concerted effort to become sustainable, using locally acquired materials to make soap is the logical next step. However, I still have some 'other' soap ingredients to finish using, so I have added some to the second recipe.
The first recipe is cold process 100% tallow and cow's milk soap. The only other ingredient is lye. The second recipe of the day included a little lard I had left over from the last soap making, and palm oil (I am almost out and will not use that ingredient anymore. I believe there is no such thing as sustainable palm oil, except when it is wild harvested from the jungle in Africa. Then it has to be shipped a long distance to get here and that is not sustainable. So no palm oil. There is a little castor oil as well, because I would like the soap to be a shaving soap and castor oil creates great lather. The second recipe today is for milled soap, that is to grate and melt with lye sensitive ingredients to make exquisite soaps. After the soap has cured long enough, and is no longer lye active, then it can be melted with water or wonderful additions, such as carrot juice, which is fine for aging skin, or aloe vera juice for sensitive skin, herbs and spices, too. Clays, extracts and natural colourants can be added to milled soap once the soap has no active lye in it and then poured into fancy molds to make beautiful toilet soaps. Both soaps of the day will be very hard, so well suited to the shower. Soaps with soft oils, such as olive or hemp, make a soft bar which literally disintegrates in the shower after a short short while. Tallow bars are hard and adding palm oil also creates a hard bar. The tallow, lard, palm and castor bar was also made with cow's milk and lye.
It will be at least 6 weeks, preferrably 2 months before these cold process soaps are ready to use, however; the palm, castor, lard and tallow soap separated and went through the heated gel phase, so it will be ready sooner. The gelling of soap is created by the heat from the saponification process and gives a translucent bar. The other soap did not gel and will have a creamy solid look to it. I have never made 100 % tallow soap before, so it will be an interesting venture to see how it preforms. The longer the soap cures, the better quality the lather and cleansing properties are. The soap is going to be for sale in the farm store when the weather is warm enough, so likely May or June at the earliest, which will give it lots of time to cure.
The first recipe is cold process 100% tallow and cow's milk soap. The only other ingredient is lye. The second recipe of the day included a little lard I had left over from the last soap making, and palm oil (I am almost out and will not use that ingredient anymore. I believe there is no such thing as sustainable palm oil, except when it is wild harvested from the jungle in Africa. Then it has to be shipped a long distance to get here and that is not sustainable. So no palm oil. There is a little castor oil as well, because I would like the soap to be a shaving soap and castor oil creates great lather. The second recipe today is for milled soap, that is to grate and melt with lye sensitive ingredients to make exquisite soaps. After the soap has cured long enough, and is no longer lye active, then it can be melted with water or wonderful additions, such as carrot juice, which is fine for aging skin, or aloe vera juice for sensitive skin, herbs and spices, too. Clays, extracts and natural colourants can be added to milled soap once the soap has no active lye in it and then poured into fancy molds to make beautiful toilet soaps. Both soaps of the day will be very hard, so well suited to the shower. Soaps with soft oils, such as olive or hemp, make a soft bar which literally disintegrates in the shower after a short short while. Tallow bars are hard and adding palm oil also creates a hard bar. The tallow, lard, palm and castor bar was also made with cow's milk and lye.
It will be at least 6 weeks, preferrably 2 months before these cold process soaps are ready to use, however; the palm, castor, lard and tallow soap separated and went through the heated gel phase, so it will be ready sooner. The gelling of soap is created by the heat from the saponification process and gives a translucent bar. The other soap did not gel and will have a creamy solid look to it. I have never made 100 % tallow soap before, so it will be an interesting venture to see how it preforms. The longer the soap cures, the better quality the lather and cleansing properties are. The soap is going to be for sale in the farm store when the weather is warm enough, so likely May or June at the earliest, which will give it lots of time to cure.
These soap molds are not soap molds, but plastic items from the dollar store. Since this is cold process soap, it is not very hot and will not melt the plastic. The large container will get bars that are sliced while the rounds will remain just that.
In a few days, the soap will be quite hard, so it must be grated the following day after it is created. Tallow soap and palm oil soaps are high on the hardness scale. This is what makes them great shower soaps, but in order to mill them, the smaller grated parts melt much faster than large chunks, which tend not to melt, so much as just get soft. The trick to milling soap is to ensure it is ALL melted and infused with the new lye sensitive ingredients. There was no extra fat added to these recipes, called superfatting, because that leaves room for the added fats, including glycerine and lanolin, when the soap is milled. Soap making is en enjoyable hobby and can be profitable when the right buyers are found. More and more folks are becoming sensitive to the chemicals and fragrances of store bought soap and welcome the pure soap without added ingredients. But there is also room for the fancy soaps for those a little less senstive who want a beautiful healthy bar of soap with which to wash. Come down to the Fat Ewe Farm store in June and try a few bars!
This is 10 pounds of beef tallow, lard, castor oil, palm oil, milk and a little water, plus the lye. Tomorrow, when it is hard, with gloves on my hands (because the lye will still be active), I will grate the soap and in 6 weeks or so, begin to make milled soap recipes with this soap as the base.
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