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This cold process tallow soap recipe creates a creamy, luxurious homemade soap bar! Made with pure tallow and coconut oil, it has a rich lather and is ultra-moisturizing.
Making cold process soap bars is easier than it seems. And this tallow soap recipe is no exception!
The process is the same whether you’re making a chamomile soap bar or homemade lavender soap bars; it is just a matter of switching up the ingredients used.
Once you get started making your own, you will realize it isn’t as difficult as you might think. And fair warning: it gets addicting!
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- Natural ingredients: This soap is made with natural ingredients that give it a nice lather and moisturizing properties.
- Fun DIY: Soapmaking is challenging, fun, and rewarding. Pulling a fresh, scratch-made soap bar out of the mold is such an exciting feeling!
- Low waste: Soap bars are an excellent way to reduce plastic waste and live more eco-friendly. Plus, this recipe uses up a common by-product of meat production. If you have a surplus of tallow, this is a great way to put it to use!
What You’ll Need
Ingredients
- Beef tallow: Tallow is commonly used in soapmaking because it makes a hard soap bar that lasts for a long time, similar to a homemade beeswax soap bar. Tallow soap has a ton of potential benefits for the skin. It lathers well, gently cleanses the skin, and is very moisturizing.
- Coconut oil: Coconut oil is the most popular fat for soapmaking. It protects the skin, is very moisturizing, and can reduce the signs of aging.
- Lye: Always be careful handling lye and read the safety notes thoroughly before beginning.
- Water
- Essential oils: An optional addition. You can add any of your favorite essential oils to the soap to give it a natural fragrance! Some of the best essential oils to use in soapmaking are lavender, frankincense, wild orange, chamomile, or peppermint.
Equipment
- Digital scale: Precision is important in soapmaking, so be sure to weigh ingredients with a trustworthy scale.
- Immersion blender: Keep a separate immersion blender for mixing soap. You don’t want to reuse any equipment with food.
- Kitchen thermometer: A meat thermometer or candy thermometer will work.
- Soap molds: I have found that silicone soap molds are the easiest to use.
- Protective gear: Gloves and goggles are essential for soapmaking! It’s also a good idea to wear an apron and a mask.
Important Safety Notes
- Be sure to wear gloves, long sleeves, and eye protection when using lye. It is best to make soap in a well-ventilated area to avoid breathing in lye.
- Always add the lye to the water, not the other way around. Pouring water into a jar of lye can cause a dangerous reaction.
- When making soap, make sure there are no kids or pets around. Lye should always be kept out of reach of children.
- Allow your soap bars to cure properly to avoid skin irritation from residual lye. Curing time should be a minimum of three weeks.
- If you change any of the ingredients or amounts in the recipe, you’ll need to recalculate the recipe using a soap calculator. This recipe is made with 5% superfat.
How to Make Tallow Soap
Step 1: Using a digital scale, measure out your water and pour it into a heat-resistant glass. This is important because when you add in the lye, it will get very hot, very quickly.
Step 2: Measure out the lye and add it to the water. Stir the lye until it dissolves. Note: The chemical reaction will cause it to heat up quickly.
Step 3: Measure out the tallow and coconut oil and add them both to a saucepan. Melt over medium heat.
Step 4. Once the ingredients are melted, allow them to cool back down to 100 degrees F. This may take a couple of hours.
Step 5. Once the fats reach 100 degrees, slowly add the lye and water to the oils and mix with an immersion blender. This will take a couple of minutes. You will know it is the right consistency when the soap from the blender drips and pools up at the top of the soap in the saucepan. This is known as the trace.
Step 6. If using essential oils or colorants, add those in now. Stir well.
Step 7. Pour the soap into the soap molds. If using silicone soap molds, you don’t have to do anything to them before pouring them in. Other molds may require parchment paper.
Step 8. Allow the soap to harden and sit in the molds for at least 24 hours or up to 3 days.
Step 9. Remove the soap from the molds and allow it to cure for 3-4 weeks before using.
Expert Tips
- As daunting as it might sound, it is imperative that you measure your ingredients precisely. This is very easy to do if you have a digital kitchen scale.
- When lye is mixed with fat, it makes soap. This process is called saponification. When the process is done correctly, there will be no lye in your final product. This is why soap is safe to use, while lye must be handled with caution.
- Be sure to use an immersion or stick blender to get the correct trace. Mixing by hand will take a very long time!
- You can use a variety of soap molds when making soap with tallow, but I highly recommend using silicone. They are the easiest molds to use and require no prep.
- If this is your first time making cold process soap, check out my beginner’s soap recipe to learn everything you need to know.
Recipe FAQs
Tallow is rendered fat. It can come from any animal but most commonly comes from beef fat. Like coconut oil, tallow is a liquid when in warm temperatures and solid in colder temperatures.
Rendered tallow can be used to make homemade candles, homemade tallow body balms, DIY lip balm, and even soap! Tallow is a great cooking fat too.
It does have a “fatty” smell, but it isn’t very strong. Once the bars are cured, they will pretty much have no animal fat scent. If you are concerned, adding essential oils is a great way to cover up any lingering tallow smell.
You can make a pure tallow soap bar instead, but be sure to recalculate with a soap calculator.
Lard and tallow are both rendered animal fat, but they come from different animals. Lard comes from pork fat while tallow typically comes from beef fat. Both lard and tallow are used for cooking, skincare, and soap. I even have a recipe for homemade lard soap!
More DIY Soap Recipes
- Goat Milk Melt and Pour
- Moisturizing Soap Bars
- Simple Melt and Pour Soap Bars
- Gentle Baby Soap Bar
- Shave Soap Bar
If you tried these cold process tallow soap bars or any other tutorial on my website, please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how it went in the 📝 comments below. Thanks for visiting!
Tallow Soap Recipe
Ingredients
- 18 ounces of beef tallow
- 12 ounces of coconut oil
- 4.42 ounces lye
- 9.89 ounces of water
Instructions
- Using a digital scale, measure out your water and pour it into a heat-resistant glass. This is important because when you add in the lye, it will get very hot very quickly.
- Measure out the lye and add it to the water. Stir the lye until it dissolves. Note, the chemical reaction will cause it to heat up quickly.
- Measure out the tallow and coconut oil, add to a saucepan. Melt over medium heat.
- Once the ingredients are melted, allow them to cool back down to 100 degrees. This may take a couple of hours.
- Once the fats reach 100 degrees, it is time to mix the lye water with the oils. Slowly add the lye and water to the oils and mix with an immersion blender. This will take a couple of minutes. You will know it is the right consistency when the soap from the blender drips and pools up on top of the soap in the saucepan. This is known as the trace.
- If using essential oils or color, add those in now. Stir well.
- Pour the soap into the soap molds. If using silicone soap molds, you don’t have to do anything to them before adding the soap. Other molds may require parchment paper.
- Allow the soap to harden and sit in the molds for at least 24 hours or up to 3 days.
- Remove the soap from the molds and allow it to cure for 3-4 weeks before using.
Video
Notes
- Proper caution must be taken when working with lye. Wear safety goggles, gloves, and a mask, and work in a well-ventilated area away from children and pets.
- Always add the lye to the water, not the other way around. Pouring water into a jar of lye can cause a dangerous reaction.
- Allow your soap bars to cure properly to avoid skin irritation from residual lye. Curing time is 3 weeks minimum.
- If you change any of the ingredients or amounts in the recipe, you’ll need to recalculate the recipe using a soap calculator. This recipe is made with 5% superfat.
- As daunting as it might sound, it is imperative that you measure your ingredients precisely. This is very easy to do if you have a digital kitchen scale.
- You can use a variety of soap molds when making soap with tallow, but I highly recommend using silicone. They are the easiest molds to use and require no prep.
- Check out the post above for step-by-step photos.
- Be sure to use an immersion or stick blender to get the correct trace. It will take much longer if doing this by hand!
- If this is your first time making cold process soap, check out my beginner’s soap recipe to learn everything you need to know.
I LOVE this recipe; thank you for sharing! A few days ago, I wanted to make a bigger batch of soap, so I quadrupled the recipe. Everything seemed fine while making it, but 4 days later, the bars are still a bit soft. Did I do something wrong? Do you have any tips?
I would just try giving it a few more days, and then check to make sure you follow the directions exactly.
Can I use all tallow without the coconut oil and use cow or goat or donkey milk instead of water?
To make adjustments to this recipe, you will need to use the soap calculator linked in the blog post.
Hi Laura, Can you use a spoon instead of an immersion blender to mix the lye-water and oils? I only have one immersion blender that’s dedicated for food, and so wondered if a spoon would be ok as well.
Yes, it can work by stirring with a spoon. It will however take quite a bit of time to come to trace.