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Showing posts from January, 2016

Vegan Readers - Beware....You should skip this one!

            Using Rendered Fats - 2016 In giving thought to reducing the amount of palm oil in my soaps, I've been considering experimenting with lard.  I will admit, yes, my very first thought was "I don't know...kinda gross!"   But I've had some good conversations with other soapmakers in recent months who have had super success with using both lard and tallow.  Some, like friend and colleague Amy Warden of Great Cakes Soapworks  are making the switch to rendered fats exclusively.  While I'm not ready for such an undertaking, I've been curious enough to give it a try.   I spent a day researching and playing around with Soap Calc and came up with a recipe using these percentages:     30% Olive Oil     25% Coconut Oil     20% Lard     15% Rice Bran Oil       6% Castor Oil       4% Palm Kernel flakes (ok..I was still worried they would be too soft without a little palm :) I used a 30% lye concentration and added 1 TBSP goat's mi