Care · All year
Tallow Soap Bars
One lye formula, four bars' worth of scent: plain, frankincense, myrrh, or both. The weights are for this oil list only.
This is how our household cooks, washes, and thinks. It is not medical advice, and it is not a substitute for a midwife or a doctor.
About 1 hour of work, then 4 to 6 weeks to cure · About 6 bars
“See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth and is patient with it.”
Ingredients
- 350 g rendered beef tallow
- 100 g olive oil
- 50 g coconut oil
- 68 g sodium hydroxide, pure lye, for this oil list only
- 140 g distilled water
- 10 g frankincense essential oil, or myrrh, or 5 g of each, or none for the plain bar
Method
- 1
Read this before you open the lye. Sodium hydroxide burns skin and eyes. Children and pets leave the room. Wear goggles and gloves, and long sleeves. Work where a window is open. Keep vinegar on the counter for a splash on skin, then rinse with plenty of water. If lye gets in an eye, rinse with water for a long time and get help. Do not put vinegar in an eye. Use stainless steel, heavy plastic, or glass that can take heat. Never aluminum. The lye goes into the water. Never pour water into the lye.
- 2
Weigh the oils. Weigh the lye. Weigh the water. This lye number, 68 grams, belongs only to 350 grams of beef tallow, 100 grams of olive oil, and 50 grams of coconut oil, at about a 5 percent superfat, using saponification values of 0.140, 0.135, and 0.183. If you change an oil, or if you scale one line and not the others, the bar can come out caustic. Half and double on this page are safe only because every weight moves together, including the lye and the water. A drain opener with metal shards in it is not this ingredient. You want pure sodium hydroxide.
- 3
Stir the lye into the distilled water, slowly, outside or by the open window. The pitcher will get hot. Stir until the lye dissolves. Set it where no one will grab it, and let it cool toward room temperature. Melt the tallow and coconut oil with the olive oil until just liquid, and let that cool as well. Both should be warm, not steaming, before they meet.
- 4
Pour the lye water into the oils. Blend with a stick blender in short bursts until the batter thickens to a trace, like thin pudding. If you are scenting the batch, stir in the essential oil now. Ten grams is the whole amount: all frankincense, all myrrh, or five grams of each. For a plain bar, add nothing.
- 5
Pour into a lined mold. Cover it and leave it alone for about a day. When the loaf is firm enough to unmold and cut, slice it. Then wait. Four to six weeks of cure, uncovered, on a rack, with air around the bars. A fresh bar can still be harsh. The cure is not optional.
From the kitchen
- The plain bar is the family bar. Frankincense and myrrh are for adult skin, not for babies, not for the face, and not in pregnancy. Those oils are strong. Do not add more than the 10 grams.
- Label the scented bars. An unscented bar and a resin bar look the same.
- The plain cured bar is also what the laundry soap wants, grated. Do not grate a frankincense bar into the wash.
My note
Kept on this device, beside the recipe, for the next time you cook it.
Alongside this
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Plain Tallow
Rendered beef tallow, whipped and nothing else. This is the fat for faces and for children. No scent.
20 minutes, plus rendering if the tallow is not already clean
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Whipped Tallow Butter
The softer body butter. Tallow loosened with olive oil, still unscented, for arms, legs, and winter shins.
20 minutes
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Lavender Tallow Butter
The same whipped tallow and olive oil, with a small amount of lavender essential oil. An adult jar. Not the family one.
20 minutes