10th ave. soapworks

So here are the first two soaps I made with my own rendered tallow. I love the results!! This first one is scented with mango papaya, which to me has a sweet, orangy scent. I only bought a teeny bottle of the scent but I'll be buying more of this one. The goat milk contributed to the peachy color I was hoping for, which is now turning more tan. Lilac. I'm usually skeptical about floral scents; they never smell like the real thing and are notorious for accelerating the soaping process too fast. This one really smells like fresh lilacs and behaved perfectly for me. I'll be using this scent more in the future, too. I also used some of the tallow to make bird feeders with my niece, mixing melted tallow with peanut butter and bird seed. I just hung it up last night and haven't had any "customers" yet, but I keep checking. They'll find it soon! I still have some tallow left, and hope to make some more soap tonight.

Soap has been made with tallow and lard (beef and pig fat) for as long as soapmaking has been around. While I wouldn't want to give up plant oils, like olive and coconut, there are qualities in animal fat that can't be duplicated by plant oils. Last week I thought I would try my hand at rendering, the process of purifying fat, separating it from all the other "junk." I was able to get some nice big chunks of beef fat from a local butcher shop. This is 11 pounds of fat. I chopped it up into small chunks and put it in the biggest stock pot I have, which isn't enormous. I didn't want to risk burning it so I only used about half the fat that I had for this batch. I decided that this way, I could test the whole process without getting overwhelmed. To keep the fat from burning and stinking up the house (rendering's reputation) I added water to the pot. I didn't want to risk the water evaporating, so I added a lot--probably more water than I had fat. H...

I finally bought some colors--pop micas--so that now I can begin adding some color to my soaps. This was my first attempt and I'm pleased with how they turned out. I'm excited to try this batch out in a few weeks after it cures. I've been working on making my soaps even more moisturizing. To this batch, I added cocoa butter as well as my favorite ingredient--goat milk. I also added a touch of silk, which should add a nice feel to it, too.

This is the loofah right after I peeled off the hard rind. I then rinsed them out in the sink. Some had a lot of flesh inside (like a cucumber's) and it took awhile to clean them out. These are my loofah drying. Once they were completely dry, I was able to shake out the remaining stubborn seeds. I then soaked them in a very mild bleach solution to lighten and even out the color. I had been wanting to try growing these for years! I was so excited that it worked!