I have free tallow. How much to use?

[IwantItgreen]

I'm able to get free tallow from the local butcher, all I have to do is render it.

I've done about 20 lbs. Not bad at all, I was surprised! Question, Can I use 50% in soap. One recipe I came up with is:

Tallow 50%

Olive oil 30%

Coconut 15% (I've tried 20% and feels too dry)

Castor 5%

In SoapCalc numbers are

Hardness 46

Cleansing 14

Condition 51

Bubbly 19

Creamy 36

Iodine 54

INS 148

Lauric 8

Myristic 6

Palmitic 20

Stearic 12

Ricinoleic 5

Oleic 40

Linoleic 6

Linolenic 1

What would you do if you could use 1 free ingredient is it happened to be tallow? I'm from the midwest so animal fats in soaps here is no biggy.

Are there any important changes I should make to make a nicer, better soap? I could take advantage of the Soaper's Choice Co-op. Please I want your input! TIA

Edited April 22, 2010 by IwantItgreen

[topofmurrayhill]

Certainly you can use 50%. That recipe looks fine.

Personally I lean towards more coconut oil for the bubbles. That's not necessary, and I think the tallow will actually help the lather anyway, but you don't have to be so afraid of the CO. There is no set amount of coconut oil that makes a soap drying. It depends on what recipe you put it into. 20% can be drying in one recipe and 30% could be fine in another. It's not just the CO that makes the soap drying, but the combination of everything.

Edited April 22, 2010 by topofmurrayhill

[IwantItgreen]

It's not just the CO that makes the soap drying, but the combination of everything.

Top, can you elaborate on that a bit? I'm guessing a higher superfat than 5% would make it less drying, but what else?

[Barbara AL]

If it were me I would do 40% Tallow and 40% Olive, 15 CO, and 5 Castor.

Superfat at 8% by changing to 40 Tallow your Conditon goes up to 55%

Barb

[topofmurrayhill]

That's the problem with calling it "conditioning." It always sounds like more is better. But it's actually a measure of unsaturated oil and 55 is a little high.

[topofmurrayhill]

Top, can you elaborate on that a bit? I'm guessing a higher superfat than 5% would make it less drying, but what else?

A lot of polyunsaturated oil can make it drying. I've tried bars with only 15% CO that were made with too much very soft oil and they were drying, whereas double that amount in a bar without those oils could be fine. I had a similar problem way back when I was playing around with soybean oil from the grocery store. I think it would just be good if you defined those as generally not good soaping oils.

A good firm bar based around a palmitic oil can generally handle CO well and have nice bubbles without being drying. I think your tallow soap could handle more easily. Like I said though, there's nothing wrong with the recipe the way you have it. I'm just suggesting you may have picked a scariness number for CO prematurely. Maybe you experienced it in the wrong recipe at some point.

Assuming a standard lye discount, there probably is some amount of lauric oils (CO + PKO + babassu) that it's not a good idea to exceed. In my own mind I tend to think of 30%. I've seen people use recipes that go up to 35% because they think babassu is something other than expensive coconut oil, and I made some recipes like that a while back. They aren't very drying, but a bit more than they need to be, so maybe 35% is pushing it. 15% in my mind is way overly safe.

[IwantItgreen]

If I change the recipe to: tallow 50% Olive oil 20% Coconut 25% Castor 5% then the ratio is 54:46 for Sat:Unsat which is a change from 47:53 in the original recipe. Is this what you're trying to tell me, "Look at the ratio of Sat:Unsat and figure out what you like."?

A lot of polyunsaturated oil can make it drying. I've tried bars with only 15% CO that were made with too much very soft oil and they were drying, whereas double that amount in a bar without those oils could be fine. I had a similar problem way back when I was playing around with soybean oil from the grocery store. I think it would just be good if you defined those as generally not good soaping oils.

A good firm bar based around a palmitic oil can generally handle CO well and have nice bubbles without being drying. I think your tallow soap could handle more easily. Like I said though, there's nothing wrong with the recipe the way you have it. I'm just suggesting you may have picked a scariness number for CO prematurely. Maybe you experienced it in the wrong recipe at some point.

Assuming a standard lye discount, there probably is some amount of lauric oils (CO + PKO + babassu) that it's not a good idea to exceed. In my own mind I tend to think of 30%. I've seen people use recipes that go up to 35% because they think babassu is something other than expensive coconut oil, and I made some recipes like that a while back. They aren't very drying, but a bit more than they need to be, so maybe 35% is pushing it. 15% in my mind is way overly safe.

[chuck_35550]

Top made a suggestion for basic guidelines concerning fatty acid make-up in an earlier post. He suggested: Lauric oils up to 30% Oleic oils from 20-40% and Palmitic oils to make up the rest.

How about: Coconut 18%

Olive 21%

Tallow 44%

Castor at 15%

This gives you: 45 for hardness

17 for cleansing

52 for conditioning

30 for bubbly

41 for creamy

53 for iodine

153 for INS

Lauric is 10

Myristic is 6

Palmitic is 17

Stearic is 11

Ricinoleic is 14

Oleic is 33

Linoleic is 5

Linolenic is 1

[IwantItgreen]

Thanks! Those numbers do look better than mine! I thought over 10% castor would make it a sticky bar, tho?

[chuck_35550]

Not that I'm aware of but you never know about a recipe until you test it. I like to use castor as a balance when the recipe looks light on conditioning and heavy on cleansing. I started out with a heavy coconut and began working backwards to bring down the Lauric and compensated with the castor to bring up the bubbles and brought down the tallow to ease off the palmitic. Some soapers keep those numbers pretty low but overall I think those are ok. IMHO. Do a one bar test and see what it looks like. I use a 2:1 water/lye ratio and super fat at 5.

Steve

Edited April 24, 2010 by chuck_35550

[topofmurrayhill]

Just avoid polyunsatured oils like soybean, linoleic safflower, linoleic sunflower, and even the latest incarnation of Crisco--or at least keep the amount minimal. Those aren't really soaping oils and the idea that they make soap skin-friendly is a myth. Use too much of those combined with a dose of lauric oil like CO and you'll easily get a drying soap.

Also, free yourself from the 50/50 rule of thumb when it comes to hard and soft oil. 50/50 is halfway to castile soap, which isn't any great shakes. Harder soap has a lot of good qualities and needn't sacrifice any skin-friendliness at all.

Finally, don't follow the conditioning number in SoapCalc. It's named incorrectly and will lead you astray. Castile is the only halfway decent soap with a high conditioning number. It may be gentle, but it's not the only gentle soap you can make and certainly not the best. In fact, a lot of the best recipes have middling conditioning numbers. If that number were called softness, which is really a better name for it, you wouldn't chase it.

If you keep those things in mind, I don't think you have to be afraid of a little coconut oil. Assuming a standard lye discount like 5%, it takes a lot more than 15% CO, PKO or babassu in a balanced recipe before you've overdone it.

Also make sure you know what drying is. Wash your hands with a soap and dry them. Wait 15 minutes and flex. If your skin feels tighter than it did before the washing, that's the drying quality of the soap. Regardless what else a soap does to your skin, if you don't get than tightening effect then it's not drying.

Tallow is great. As far as single oils go, it's one of the best balanced for soaping. Consider it the base of the recipe and use the other oils to tweak it.

Edited April 24, 2010 by topofmurrayhill