In the previous article, we looked at why soap makers still love tallow and why this traditional ingredient is finding its place again.
Now, before we get into actual tallow soap recipes, there is one important question we need to answer: can a handmade tallow soap be used for both the body and laundry?
Many people assume the answer is yes. After all, most of us have heard stories of boerseep being used for everything from bathing to washing clothes and cleaning the home.Well, yes and no.
The same ingredients can be used to make both body soap and laundry soap, but the way they are formulated is very different. Understanding this difference is one of the most important lessons a beginner soap maker can learn.
Whenever I'm formulating a soap recipe, the first thing I ask myself is:
What do i want this soap to do?
Do I want a body soap or do I want a cleaning soap?
That decision comes before choosing fragrances, colourants, herbs, clays, or even deciding whether the recipe will contain only tallow or a combination of oils.
The purpose of the soap determines how the recipe should be formulated.
Whether you're making cold process soap, hot process soap, a simple DIY project, or exploring natural ingredients for handmade soap making, understanding the purpose of your formulation is one of the most valuable skills you can develop.
When we use soap on our skin, we don't just expect it to clean. We also expect it to feel pleasant to use. We don't want our skin feeling dry, tight, or stripped after washing. We want a soap that cleanses while still leaving the skin feeling comfortable.
One of the ways we achieve this in cold process soap making is through a process called superfatting.
Superfatting simply means that we deliberately formulate the recipe so that there are more oils or fats present than the lye can fully convert into soap. As a result, a small amount of those oils remain in the finished bar.
We do this on purpose because those remaining oils help create a milder, more conditioning soap that feels better on the skin. This is why most handmade body soaps contain some level of superfat.
Laundry soap has a completely different job. It doesn't need to feel luxurious or conditioning. Its job is to remove dirt, grease, and stains.
The problem is that the very thing that makes a body soap lovely to use—the extra oils left behind through superfatting—is exactly what we don't want in laundry soap. Those oils can end up on clothing, towels, and household surfaces.
That's why cleaning soaps are generally formulated with little to no superfat. Some experienced soap makers even formulate cleaning soaps with a slight lye excess to maximise cleaning power, although this is something I would not recommend for beginners.
When I first started making soap back in 2011, I was trying to make as many things as possible from scratch. It was the beginning of my self-sufficiency journey, and like many beginners, I thought I had found the perfect solution.
I made a lovely batch of superfatted beef tallow soap and then grated it down to make homemade laundry powder. At first, everything seemed fine.
Then load after load of washing started coming out with strange stains that I couldn't explain. As time went on, those stains developed an unpleasant smell and I couldn't understand what was causing it.
Eventually I realised the problem wasn't my washing machine.
It was my soap.
The free oils left behind in the superfatted tallow soap were being deposited onto the fabric. Over time those oils started going rancid, creating stains and odours.
It was one of the most valuable soap-making lessons I've ever learned.
In my opinion, no.
Can you wash your hands or body with a zero-superfat laundry soap? Technically, yes. Will it be pleasant? Probably not.
Can you use a superfatted body soap in your laundry? You can, but don't be surprised if you end up with oily residue, stains, or reduced cleaning performance.
While the ingredients may be identical, the intended purpose of the soap is not. A good body soap and a good laundry soap are formulated differently because they are designed to do different jobs.
Now that we understand the difference between body soap and laundry soap, it's time to start making some actual soap.
In the next article in this series, we'll make two simple 100% tallow soap recipes: one designed for the skin and one designed for laundry and cleaning.
We'll also look at ways to customise them using:
These simple additions can help you create handmade soaps that are both beautiful and practical.
Zikhona tefu
Zikhona Tefu is the founder and formulator at O'live Handmade Soaps and Isivuno Naturals.
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