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All Natural Homemade Tallow Soap Recipe

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Tallow soap has been made for centuries. Bring it into the modern era with this DIY homemade tallow soap recipe. You won't be disappointed by its moisturizing properties.

Homemade All-Natural tallow soap is pretty awesome! There are tons of benefits to using tallow in soaps, specifically 100% grass-fed tallow.

Did you know tallow has been a staple in soap making for centuries?

It produces a hard bar that cleans your skin without stripping it of its natural oils. It should be a staple ingredient in your soap making cabinet!

Tallow can be a cost-effective soap making oil if you’re willing to do a little bit of work. Quality soap-making ingredients can get expensive, making tallow a great alternative.

What Is Tallow?

Tallow is the fat from slaughtered cows. Stay with me, even if it freaks you out a little. Our ancestors have used tallow in soap making for centuries. And for good reason.

Why did our ancestors use tallow to make soap? It was cheap, readily available, and made some awesome homemade soap!

Instead of throwing out the fat from a slaughtered cow, the fat is used to make soap. They were smart like that and used every resource they had available.

Tallow is best from a specific type of fat on the cow called suet. It's the hard fat around the kidneys. Ask your butcher, they will get you the right stuff.

Rendering tallow is the process of transforming big hunks of cow fat into creamy tallow. To do this, chop the fat into small pieces. Then heat the fat at a low temperature. I use an old crockpot. When the fat melts, a liquid separates from the impurities. Strain the liquid to get out all the impurities. When cooled, pure tallow is a creamy butter-like consistency.

Tallow is a great substitute in baking for lard. It has a similar consistency. We all know lard got a bad rap lard got for many years. But they were wrong, lard is not the red-headed stepchild. Neither is tallow. Hydrogenated oils like Crisco are what to avoid.

Both lard and tallow like make a great bar of soap. And make an amazing pie crust!

This homemade tallow soap recipe will help moisturize your skin very well since tallow is similar to our own skin properties. #soapmaking #soaprecipes #skincarerecipes #skincare

Benefits of Tallow

Tallow might make you cringe to think about slathering it on your skin. I did for a second and then I used it. Once I used it, all my hesitation melted away. Yours will too.

Tallow has been used for centuries to heal irritated skin and in healing balms.  There are some pretty remarkable stories of tallow healing what other treatments couldn't.

It makes sense. Tallow so closely resembles the composition of our cell membranes.

Tallow acts the same way our skin does to lubricate and waterproof our skin. So if you've got dry skin, using tallow is like giving your skin a healthy boost of moisture. One that your skin can actually use.

Grass-fed tallow contains conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) and palmitoleic acid. Giving tallow anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory, and anti-microbial properties. Think about that every time put some tallow on your skin. (source) I bet your Dove bar can't say that.

Tallow is great for nourishing the skin as a lotion.  I make tallow balm to soothe irritated skin. It helps my son's eczema on his legs. Tallow balm is my #2 favorite lotion, a close second to whipped shea butter lotion.

Why 100% Grass Fed Cows Are a Must

All tallow is not created equal like it once was when our ancestors used it. Farmed cows fed a GMO and pesticide laden diet of soy and corn store lots of those toxins in their fat. A diet that cows were not meant to eat.

Tallow from 100% grass fed cows is best. Many of the benefits of tallow listed above only apply to 100% grass-fed tallow and NOT their traditional grain fed counterparts.

Grass-fed cows have higher vitamin and mineral levels than traditionally farmed cows. A study showed as much as a 4 times greater vitamin E level in the grass-fed cows. (source)

100% grass-fed cows have 3 – 5 times the amount of CLA (the anti-cancer stuff you want). (source)

I hope you're convinced that 100% grass-fed tallow is worth a little more money. Pick 100% grass-fed cows so you get all the good stuff, none of the bad.

We split 1/2 a grass fed cow with friends a few times a year.  As a bonus I get lots of free tallow that I render myself.

If you ask around, you'll find farms in your area too.

I love that our meat comes from an old family farm in Northern Pennsylvania. My friend got married near where they raise the cows. I’ve seen it firsthand. It’s beautiful! Picturesque.  But… in the middle of nowhere. Although the middle of nowhere is a great place for my food to come from. Right?

This homemade tallow soap recipe will help moisturize your skin very well since tallow is similar to our own skin properties. #soapmaking #soaprecipes #skincarerecipes #skincare

Tallow Soap Recipe

Some people make tallow soap with 100% tallow. I prefer a few other oils to balance out the tallow soap, 50% tallow and the rest a combination of oils.

Tallow makes a hard bar of soap that is fairly cleansing.

Tallow does NOT produce a lot of bubbles. I love bubbles. So…. I add some oils to give more of a bubbly lather. It’s a personal preference. If you love bubbles like me, learn how to make your own foaming hand soap!

100% tallow soap is still awesome.

If you buy 1/2 or 1/4 cow already, you can get the tallow for free. Just ask the butcher and render the tallow yourself. I prefer to do it on our porch since my husband complains about the smell.

Or if you prefer to buy tallow pre-made, I'd recommend this supplier. There are some suppliers on amazon too, just pick one who uses grass-fed cows.

This homemade tallow soap recipe will help moisturize your skin very well since tallow is similar to our own skin properties. #soapmaking #soaprecipes #skincarerecipes #skincare

Homemade Tallow Soap

Prep Time: 10 minutes
Active Time: 10 minutes
Additional Time: 12 hours
Total Time: 12 hours 20 minutes

Materials

Instructions

  1. We'll go through the basic steps to make this soap, but this is not a soap making tutorial. I'm assuming you've already comfortable with cold process soap making.
  2. If you're new to soap making check out this beginner tutorial over at the Soap Queen. Or check out this recipe at The Things We'll Make. This tallow soap recipe is a good one to start with too.
  3. Measure your oils. Heat solid oils so everything is a fluid liquid. Combine all your oils and give it a good stir with your stick blender.
  4. Put on your safety gear. Measure your water and lye. Then add lye to the water. NEVER add water to lye. ALWAYS add lye to your water. Add lye slowly and stir until combined.
  5. Slowly pour your lye water into your oil mixture. I pour the lye water down the shaft of my stick blender to avoid splashes.
  6. Make sure your immersion blender is fully submerged and begin blending. Blend until a light trace is achieved and pour into your mold.
  7. Let your soap cure for 24 hours before unmolding. Once unmolded, your soap should cure for 4-6 weeks to fully harden.
  8. Enjoy your new soap!!

Notes

  • Like any other soap recipe you get online, double check the recipe with a soap calculator. Yes - even this recipe. A typo could spell disaster. Here's my favorite soap calculator. I used if for this tallow soap recipe. Each soap calculator is a little different. Your numbers might vary slightly unless you use soapcalc.net too.
  • Measurements are in grams and ounces. My preference is grams, as it gives the most accurate measurement.
  • This recipe has a 5% superfat.
  • I made this soap unscented so feel free to customize with fragrance or colorants.

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Did you make this product?

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Make Some Soap

Now that you have a foolproof recipe, get making some soap! Tallow has amazing benefits for your skin. Cash in on those benefits for you and your family by using 100% grass-fed tallow in your soap.

And, if you loved making this tallow soap then why not expand your soap-making? I also have some wonderful recipes for goat milk soaps that are absolutely luxurious!

Comment below and tell me if you've ever used tallow in soap or skincare products before. I'd love to hear about your experience.

Barbara McLeod

Monday 20th of July 2020

Hello. I am new to soapmaking. I put this recipe into soapcalc and it tells me thatfor water at 38% of oils the required water would be 6.08 oz, and that at 33% the water required would be 5.28%. Your recipe says 3.08 oz. Do you intend to have this smaller amount of water? Soapcalc says that beginners "typically" use 38%. Would you suggest I follow your recipe or the amount from Soapcalc? Thank you, Barbara Mcleod

Trish DeJong

Friday 30th of August 2019

CAN YOU USE CHICKEN FAT?

Tarek

Wednesday 10th of July 2019

Can I substitute shea butter with any thigh else? Thank you. Tarek

Yvonne

Thursday 11th of April 2019

I have just purchased my first lot of beef fat from butcher it seemed to have a variation of fat and I am rendering it in slow cooker .Next time I will be more Pacific and ask for kidney fat .I can't wait to try your recipe with coconut oil ect .Do you put any oil in for superfat at the end of your cooking or do you cook all the oils and have you allowed for superstar by adding more oil overall Thanks for your recipe

Janis

Friday 9th of March 2018

I read your msg how to make soap you use the lye I thought it was dangerous. Should I stick without using lye. I can buy bars of goat milk and then I can add the castile soap and let it cook a while to make thick with oatmeal and honey. something you can do without lye?

Shannon

Monday 12th of March 2018

Hi Janis!

I was the author of this guest post. I'd love to answer your question - it's a great question!! I asked the same question when I started out on my soap making journey.

All soap is made with lye. The combo of oil, water and lye transform into soap. It's a chemical reaction.... taking you back to high school chemistry. When you carefully follow a good recipe NO lye remains in the finished soap. It's pretty awesome!

There are two ways to avoid using lye:

1. Use a melt and soap base and melt it down

Most of the melt and soaps contain ingredients I'm trying to avoid by making my own soap. Which kind of defeats the purpose.

Many melt and pour soap bases are a weird consistency when you use them. Slimy is the best way to describe it. When you read melt and pour soap base reviews, there are many people who feel the same way.

Melt and pour can easily be made into a pretty soap. Personally it's nice to display but not something I'd want to use.

2. Rebatching or an existing bar of soap. I save my soap scraps and do this for our family. Rebatching will result in a bumpy kind of soap, not pretty like cold process soap. But completely usable and customizable. This might be the way to go!

I'd be happy to answer any further questions you may have.

Shannon

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