I found a place that is selling 100% tallow shaving soap. No colors, or anything. Has anyone tried using this? What was it like?
Anybody tried pure tallow shaving soap?
- Thread starter Doc Dan
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Chandu
I Waxed The Badger.
Confused as to how a soap can be 100% tallow. Tallow is simply fat. It's not soap until mixed with other chemicals via a particular process.
On the other hand many soaps are tallow based. Most are good, but tallow itself is not magical. There are many excellent soaps that don't have it.
Tallow itself has only 22% stearic so it wouldn't make a good shaving soap as stearic acid should be 50% minimum for a dense and stable lather.
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This one says it is made only with tallow and lye (of course the lye will go away once it is soap). It's Old Whippersnappers.
www.oldwhippersnappers.com
Premium 100% Tallow Shaving Bar Soap
Years ago when many people had farms and raised their own cattle they would make their own Tallow Shaving Bar Soap by rendering beef fat.
I have some doubts about the claims made on that site, not that he is purposefully misleading people, it may be that he himself is being misled.
The first is the statement that "I purchase the fat from a farm in the United States that raises Wagyu cattle."
Dubious.
Purebred wagyu cattle comprise about .029% of the cattle in the US.
Most cattle advertised as Wagyu are from stock imported during a brief window years ago, which have been bred with Angus cattle.
It makes no sense that Cattle raisers would slaughter the very rare Wagyu Cattle on a regular basis, so what is being represented as "Wagyu" is a cow that at sometime, somewhere in it's family tree there was a Japanese Cow.
"Wagyu Cattle" means Japanese Cattle. Kobe Beef is from Kobe, Japan. There is no Kobe Beef from the United States.
You can certainly make soap from tallow and lye. That's how soap is made. Tallow and lye make soap, just as it did when our ancestors loaded up covered wagons and moved west across the great plains of the United States.
But just tallow and lye soap doesn't mean it's shaving soap. Shaving soap usually has additional ingredients that improve the slickness and latherability of the soap.
Just because one uses a given soap for shaving, doesn't mean that it is specifically "shaving" soap.
I can shave with a bar of Irish Spring or Dial. That doesn't mean it's shaving soap.
The first is the statement that "I purchase the fat from a farm in the United States that raises Wagyu cattle."
Dubious.
Purebred wagyu cattle comprise about .029% of the cattle in the US.
Most cattle advertised as Wagyu are from stock imported during a brief window years ago, which have been bred with Angus cattle.
It makes no sense that Cattle raisers would slaughter the very rare Wagyu Cattle on a regular basis, so what is being represented as "Wagyu" is a cow that at sometime, somewhere in it's family tree there was a Japanese Cow.
"Wagyu Cattle" means Japanese Cattle. Kobe Beef is from Kobe, Japan. There is no Kobe Beef from the United States.
You can certainly make soap from tallow and lye. That's how soap is made. Tallow and lye make soap, just as it did when our ancestors loaded up covered wagons and moved west across the great plains of the United States.
But just tallow and lye soap doesn't mean it's shaving soap. Shaving soap usually has additional ingredients that improve the slickness and latherability of the soap.
Just because one uses a given soap for shaving, doesn't mean that it is specifically "shaving" soap.
I can shave with a bar of Irish Spring or Dial. That doesn't mean it's shaving soap.
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Those are good points.
Chandu
I Waxed The Badger.
That site/soap raises a few too many flags for me.
The ones pointed out and
1. Soap seems lower priced than what it would be expected to sell for given the price of the "premium" tallow.
2. "While the soap had (and still has) a tendency to be difficult to lather" product description
3. Then the other soap "TalSheaCo" because the simple tallow one doesn't lather that well.
4. This is the biggie for me. His logo at the top of his page is Popcorn Sutton. To me that seems disrespectful to Popcorn and his family if this person is no relation or has not obtained rights to use such from Popcorn's widow/family.
Lots of other good tallow soaps out there.
The ones pointed out and
1. Soap seems lower priced than what it would be expected to sell for given the price of the "premium" tallow.
2. "While the soap had (and still has) a tendency to be difficult to lather" product description
3. Then the other soap "TalSheaCo" because the simple tallow one doesn't lather that well.
4. This is the biggie for me. His logo at the top of his page is Popcorn Sutton. To me that seems disrespectful to Popcorn and his family if this person is no relation or has not obtained rights to use such from Popcorn's widow/family.
Lots of other good tallow soaps out there.
When I read this, I imagined myself trying to shave with pure lard (I know, not exactly the same) and figured that something about the 100% tallow claim (What, no lye???) did not sit right with me.
B.
Soap can certainly be made from a combination of tallow and lye. That is exactly how the first soaps we made when fat dripping from meat cooked over an open fire fell into the ashes of the fire. You can still purchase lye soap made from either lard (pig fat) or tallow (beef or sheep fat).
Although I would not mind washing my hands with lye soap, I would not want to use it for shaving as I have sensitive skin. Many high quality shaving soaps are produced from a variety of animal fats including beef or bison tallow, sheep or lamb tallow, lard, duck fat, and a variety of vegetable fats such as Shea butter, kokum butter, jajoba oil, etc. They may also contain milk from cows, sheep, bison, water buffalo, etc. These added ingredients are designed to nourish the skin during and following the shave.
Although I would not mind washing my hands with lye soap, I would not want to use it for shaving as I have sensitive skin. Many high quality shaving soaps are produced from a variety of animal fats including beef or bison tallow, sheep or lamb tallow, lard, duck fat, and a variety of vegetable fats such as Shea butter, kokum butter, jajoba oil, etc. They may also contain milk from cows, sheep, bison, water buffalo, etc. These added ingredients are designed to nourish the skin during and following the shave.
