What's new

Tallow as ingredient in Shaving Cream ..?

Last night I made a longish post about Tabac to this "Shaving Cream" forum.

But I now realize that there is a much simpler way to ask what I really want to know:

Are there ANY shaving creams out there containing TALLOW as an ingredient -- if so, which?

Or, is the notion of "shaving cream with tallow" an oxymoron (e.g. Tallow may simply not lend itself to a "creamy" product, as it will harden up ...)

Thank you for enlightening me ...
 
Tallow is simply a source of fatty acids used to make soap. The type of fatty acids used are more important than the source of the fatty acids. Stearic acid, whether from animal or vegetable sources, is critical to a good shaving soap. Stearic acid has become rather expensive, so many soaps and creams have been reformulated to use other fatty acids or even synthetic detergents and foaming agents.

The hardness of a soap depends upon the types of fatty acids used and the ratio of sodium and potassium hydroxide used. Sodium hydroxide produces harder soaps while potassium hydroxide produces softer, or even liquid soaps.

Although I have tried more than 100 soap formulations, I have tried only a few creams. I am not familiar with a tallow-based cream, but that does not mean there aren't any. Generally, I have found soaps to be better than creams. I do use creams for convenience when I travel, but seldom use them at home. Tallow based soaps do not have to be hard pucks. I have some that are as soft as creams.
 
Tallow is simply a source of fatty acids [...]
Thank you so much for this thorough reply! This gives me a new and different perspective on things. I generally prefer soaps too, and don't have a lot of cream experience. But I like to do something new and different once in a while, and so started trying out more creams.
 
Cream as in a tube idk, but soft soaps aka croaps in contrast to the hard and milled Tabac puck yes!

Vitos Extra Super
Vitos Extra Super Coco
Cella red

Cella (brick) is one of my favourite soaps .... good old-school (tallow) product. But I don't think Cella qualifies as a "cream". To my mind, you should be able to squeeze a proper "cream" out of a tube, even though it may come in a tub.
 
Vitos Classic (Eucalyptus and Lanolin) cream in the big 500ml tube contains tallow (sixth item in the ingredient list below). I've been using it for a couple of years and haven't noticed any hardening, yet. It's a great cream; very slick and easy to lather. :thumbup1:

7kaNxEd.jpg
 
Tallow is simply a source of fatty acids used to make soap. The type of fatty acids used are more important than the source of the fatty acids. Stearic acid, whether from animal or vegetable sources, is critical to a good shaving soap. Stearic acid has become rather expensive, so many soaps and creams have been reformulated to use other fatty acids or even synthetic detergents and foaming agents.

The hardness of a soap depends upon the types of fatty acids used and the ratio of sodium and potassium hydroxide used. Sodium hydroxide produces harder soaps while potassium hydroxide produces softer, or even liquid soaps.

Although I have tried more than 100 soap formulations, I have tried only a few creams. I am not familiar with a tallow-based cream, but that does not mean there aren't any. Generally, I have found soaps to be better than creams. I do use creams for convenience when I travel, but seldom use them at home. Tallow based soaps do not have to be hard pucks. I have some that are as soft as creams.
May I add something to RayClem's excellent reply to Jens' question? Although it is clearly possible to make shave cream from tallow it would make the manufacture significantly more difficult. Stearic acid reacts practically instantly with the alkali added to it during the process whereas using tallow would necessitate a much longer (and therefore more expensive) saponification step as the tallow, being an ester, has to be split into its constituent fatty acids and glycerol during this step.

Also there would be issues in controlling the rheology of the final product. The viscosity of the cream, as RayClem has indicated, is dependent on the fatty acid mix in the soap. Commercial stearic acid (the type used in shave cream) is a mixture of stearic acid, palmitic acid and oleic acid but the relative amounts of each are pretty well controlled. However the level of the fatty acid constituents of tallow varies significantly -eg mutton tallow is quite different to beef tallow; Australian beef tallow is quite different to UK beef tallow etc.

Finally, commercial stearic acid has very little odour. Tallow has a strong smell. So this would need to be considered in formulating a tallow based shave cream.
 
Vitos Classic (Eucalyptus and Lanolin) cream in the big 500ml tube contains tallow (sixth item in the ingredient list below). I've been using it for a couple of years and haven't noticed any hardening, yet. It's a great cream; very slick and easy to lather. :thumbup1:

View attachment 1446840
I worked through 500ml of Vitos Tabacco which is tallow free, now I have to contemplate getting the Classic :thumbsup:
It's only EUR 6.95 but it's quite an amount...
 
May I add something to RayClem's excellent reply to Jens' question? Although it is clearly possible to make shave cream from tallow it would make the manufacture significantly more difficult.
Thanks @Scouser , for another excellent and insightful explanation!

One question I have extending from this:
The added difficulties you describe with Tallow -- are they particular to the manufacturing of creams ..? Or do they also apply in the production of hard soaps?
 
I don't know if Ethos is available in the EU, but this one is right up your alley.
EthosBloodOrange.jpg


Ingredients

Aloe Vera Juice, Grass Fed Whipped Beef Tallow, Stearic Acid, Coconut Oil, Castor Oil, Potassium Hydroxide, Organic Vegetable Glycerin, Myristic Acid, Potassium Sorbate, Organic Shea Butter, Orange Butter, Sheep Milk, Coconut Milk, Sodium Hydroxide, Apricot Kernel Oil, Rosehip Oil, Organic Italian Blood Orange Essential Oil, EOS Complex, Allantoin, Oat Amino Acids, Silk Amino Acids, Soy/Rice Peptides, Sorbitol, Organic Vitamin E Oil, Sodium Lactate, Ceramide Complex, Liquid Lanolin, Phenoxyethanol, Caprylyl Glycol, Sorbic Acid, Capritolin (Natural Preservative) Calendula Extract, Aloe Vera Extract, Comfrey Extract, Milk Thistle Extract, Chamomile Extract.
 
Thanks @Scouser , for another excellent and insightful explanation!

One question I have extending from this:
The added difficulties you describe with Tallow -- are they particular to the manufacturing of creams ..? Or do they also apply in the production of hard soaps?
My first hand knowledge of hard soap manufacture is now rather dated. My working life started in that area but I moved on in the mid-70s. But certainly the variation in the chemical composition of tallows needed to be factored into the oil and fats blend used in making soap. Oils and fats are very much commodities and the market price varied on a daily basis. Large companies who had to buy these materials tended to have very experienced and astute people as oils & fats buyers; the materials they bought, being so highly influenced by the market prices, varied and consequently the "formula" used in soap production also varied accordingly to maintain product consistency.
 
Vitos Classic (Eucalyptus and Lanolin) cream in the big 500ml tube contains tallow (sixth item in the ingredient list
I see that Vitos also makes a 500 ml tube cream called "tobacco". Anyone know if that contains tallow too..?
 

musicman1951

three-tu-tu, three-tu-tu
Tallow is not an ingredient I look for, but I don't have a problem with it. I like a manufacturer that doesn't add a lot of crazy stuff to something that goes on my face, but I chase performance. If I read a lot of good reviews here on the forum I give that soap a try - recently Canadian, which is really very nice. So I don't have any idea which of my soaps have tallow and which don't, although I'm fairly sure MdC does not - which only reinforces my attitude.
 
Top Bottom