Best Cold Process Dish Soap Bar Recipe with Beef Tallow
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Now, now. If you came here from my coconut oil cold process dish soap bar recipe, just know I’m not mad at you for wanting to use beef fat (or lard or goat tallow) to make your dish soap, but I am giving you the eyeballs. I just don’t see why I’d want to use my precious animal fats when hand washing dishes!
Not ready to dive into soapmaking?! You can purchase a bar from my online farm stand!
I get it if you’re allergic to coconut oil, which is why I gave you this recipe to make your own cold process dish soap bar recipe with beef tallow so you don’t break out in hives! But if I’m being honest, I’d use tallow if it came right down to it. Especially the stuff that doesn’t really purify well (the meat trimmings, not the suet) as it’s the best for soap. PLEASE DON’T USE THE BEAUTIFUL PURE SUET KIDNEY FAT FOR SOAP. I will be judging you and I will also feel it right in the center of my soul if you do. Save the stinky gnarly stuff for cold process soap!!!!
Same if you’re using lard, use the pork fat trimmings that came off of muscle, not that pure kidney fat. I’m just happy you’re looking for an easy cold process dish soap bar recipe with natural ingredients without those harsh chemicals and surfactants used in that commercial dish soaps (actually synthetic detergents, not even soap) they sell in the grocery store.
This cold process recipe is a lye soap that uses methods known as cold process soap making. Tallow soap bars have a delightfully creamy lather to them that sticks around when washing. This is a solid dish soap that does take some getting used to when using if you’re used to the commercially purchased detergent, but once you start, you’ll love using a solid homemade dish soap bar!
This formula is effective on grease and stuck on food and even safe to wash cast iron with, even though people will say you can’t use soap made with lye. Spoiler alert; all soap is made with lye or it’s not soap. Get your soap making tools out and toss together a batch or two of this simple cold process solid dish soap bar recipe for some useful gifting during the holiday season.
There’s nothing like making some homemade soap to set the stage for some cozy fall vibes. Canning season is calming down, the garden is done, and now it’s time to restock the skin care and cleaning supplies. Give a big hand cut bar along with a thrifted tea cup plate or small bowls and a dish brush for a delightfully thoughtful and handmade gift!
Try it before you make it!
If you’d like to try my cold process solid dish soap bar made with beef tallow rendered from cattle from our herd of red angus, bred, born, & raised on our farm, check out my online farm stand here. I have all my handcrafted soaps available in limited quantities, but it does give you a chance to see just what homemade soap is all about before diving in with all the equipment and ingredients for the craft. All the soap and balm recipes I share on here are also available for purchase from our farm store. And it supports our farm, which I so very much appreciate!
​Differentiating the Fat
What do I mean by kidney fat. I mean those bulbous triangular shaped fat pieces on either side of the animal around the kidneys. This fat isn’t attached to muscle (meat) leading to fat that renders beautifully with little to no flavor or smell afterward.
The fat trimmings are any fat trimmed off of muscle. While this fat can smell a bit, tallow smelling like beef and lard smelling a bit icky, that smell does not continue if used in soap. The heating and saponification process renders a bar that doesn’t smell like that anymore. It’s magical!
This is why I say, save the pure tallow for skin care, the pure leaf lard for baking, and the fat trimmings off of muscle for soap. I do use the rendered tallow trimmings for savory cooking, but not the pork. Rendered pork fat trimmings are exclusively for soap in this house! And if you’ve ever rendered it, you know why. PEWWW WHEEEE.
​Tallow or Lard
​Due to similar SAP values, meaning the amount of lye to saponify the fat molecules, tallow and lard are interchangeable in this recipe. If you’re unsure, just run it through a lye calculator real quick to verify. You should be doing that anyway with all soap recipes because human error is a thing!
Using a Lye Calculator
My very favorite lye calculator is the one from soap calc. Yeah, it’s a bit hard to understand and not the best user friendly, but it contains SO MANY variables you can change. And once you learn the science and art of soap making, you will come to appreciate this calculator. Brambleberry and The Sage also have lye calculators that are easier to use as a novice which I will link as well.
You mainly need to familiarize yourself with a lye calculator because you should run EVERY SINGLE soap recipe through one prior to making it. Even my recipes. Human error exists and I could have fat fingered the wrong number and even though I have proof read the heck out of this blog, I may have missed it. I have human eyeballs, remember?! So, run your recipe through a calculator quick before you start making it because if you’d create a soap with too much or too little lye, you would have a mess on your hands. Yeah, one that could be saved by re-batching, but we’d rather not add an extra step in there if we don’t have to. Making this cold process solid dish soap bar recipe should be simple and quick, not painstaking with multiple steps. Get into the habit of running things through a lye calculator!
Superfat
When you enter the soap world, you’ll hear about superfat. Most folks aim for body soaps for be around 5% superfat. Anything lower will dry your skin the heck out and anything higher won’t be a very hard or long lasting bar. For dish soap, I do a 0% superfat because I want the soap to be super cleansing and not leave any fat or oil residues from remaining superfat. By doing 0, you’re not leaving any extra oil molecules un-saponified after the chemical reaction between lye and the oil molecules.
I blend a mostly coconut oil bar with just a dab of olive oil to make it a bit more of a gentle soap and easier on the hands. This recipe has served me well and I sure do a ton of dishes! If you’re giving as gifts, I would just make sure folks know it is dish soap and not body soap or face soap so they don’t wash with it a bunch of times and end up with dry skin, especially those with sensitive skin.
Using Homemade Dish Soap
Don’t even expect homemade dish soap to perform exactly like store-bought dish soap from the store. You have to remember that those detergents have surfactants and additives to make them super hard on grease and super sudsy.
While homemade dish soap gets nice and sudsy, the bubbles don’t stay around super long. I have found that using a brush and rubbing it on the solid dish soap bars between each dish or so really helps with the cleaning power. A dish soap bar nearly lasts me 2 weeks and you’d be surprised if you knew how many dishes I did on a daily basis. I find that longevity mixed with the ability to give me the cleanest dishes and not poison me to be quite impressive.
Essential Oil Blends For Dish Soap
- 9g lemon essential oil + 9g lime essential oil
- 6g sweet orange essential oil + 6g patchouli essential oil
- 12g lavender essential oil + 6g peppermint essential oil
Let’s make this homemade cold process dish soap bar recipe!
Equipment You Might Want:
- Lye safe container for lye solution
- Soap making safe pitcher or bowl
- Soap making spatula
- Immersion blender
- Scale
Ingredients:
- 14 oz Tallow or Lard
- 18 g Essential oils
- 1.96 oz Sodium Hydroxide
- 4.38 oz Filtered Water
Step 1: Make the Lye Solution
First, it is a good idea to read up on, know, and understand basic lye safety and soapmaking technique before attempting this recipe. I will not be providing in depth step by step instructions as this recipe is meant for someone who already knows how to make soap. This recipe uses techniques to make cold-process bar soap.
Second, I recommend you run every single soap recipe you want to use through a soap calculator on your own just to double check, because while I do aim for perfection, I am human and these fingers will occasionally type their own numbers on this screen. So to prevent and avoid disaster, please double check my numbers even though I checked, re-checked, checked that check, and checked checked checky checked it.
Into a lye safe container, measure out water. Add in lye to the measured water and stir to dissolve in a well-ventilated area. Allow to cool until below 90 degrees F. (This is my personal preference, others like to soap hotter but I have found with my skills and technique, soaping under 90 works fabulous).
Step 2: Melt the oils
Measure tallow out by weight and melt, stirring occasionally.
Allow oil to cool to 80-90 degrees F. You want the oils to be within 10 degrees F of the lye solution for best results.
Step 3: Prep
While the lye solution and oils cool, prepare your area to make soap. Get the molds ready. I like to use the flower molds I have linked in the printable version of the recipe and this makes about 6-10 bars of dish soap using these round flower molds but you can absolutely pour this into a loaf.
Tallow can take a few days to harden enough for hand cutting which is why I choose to use the single bar molds as I can let it sit for weeks until I remove it from the molds if I want to!
Weigh out essential oils into a small glass container using the blend of your choice. If you want to do one of the blends I mentioned above, just measure out equal parts of them.
Step 4: Make Soap
Again, observing soap making safety and lye safety and wearing the appropriate PPE, add the lye solution to the oil.
Blend with a stick blender until light trace is reached.
After trace is reached, add in essential oils of your choice. Blend to combine.
Pour soap batter into prepared soap molds.
Lightly tap molds to remove any air bubbles and spritz with 91% rubbing alcohol to encourage any bubbles to the surface.
Allow to cool down in a cool area until set. Bars made with tallow or lard can take a couple of days to harden enough to cut if using a loaf mold. This is why I like individual bar molds for this, because I can let them sit for a while until I remember them :D
Step 5: Cure
Remove soap from mold and allow to cure 6-8 weeks. The longer the soap cures the better as it gives the bar time to dry out and evaporate the water content so it lasts longer and animal fats do need more time to cure than bars made with coconut oil. You can use them after 48 hours, but I’d recommend just a teensy bit of patience for best results!
To use:
Use a dish soap brush or sponge and work the soap bar into a good foamy lather. Scrub the soapy brush directly on the dishes to clean and then rinse well. Reapply as needed.
Store bar in a place it can drain, like a draining soap dish, and dry between uses to have the longest lasting bar possible.
Notes:
Do not sub another oil for tallow/lard unless you have verified they have similar SAP values.
Enjoy this natural dish soap recipe! Giving natural products made by your hands as gifts are the most meaningful!
Equipment
- Lye safe container for lye solution
- Soap making safe pitcher or bowl
- Soap making spatula
Ingredients
- 14 oz Tallow or Lard
- 18 g Essential oils
- 1.96 oz Sodium Hydroxide
- 4.38 oz Filtered Water
- 9 g lemon essential oil
- 9 g lime essential oil
Instructions
- First, it is a good idea to read up on, know, and understand basic lye safety and soapmaking technique before attempting this recipe. Â I will not be providing in depth step by step instructions as this recipe is meant for someone who already knows how to make soap. Â This recipe uses techniques to make cold-process bar soap.
- Into a lye safe container, measure out water. Â Add in lye to the measured water and stir to dissolve in a well-ventilated area. Â Allow to cool until below 90 degrees F.Â
- Measure tallow out by weight and melt, stirring occasionally.
- Allow oil to cool to 80-90 degrees F. Â You want the oils to be within 10 degrees F of the lye solution for best results.
- While the lye solution and oils cool, prepare your area to make soap. Â Get the molds ready. Â I like to use the flower molds I have linked in the printable version of the recipe and this makes about 6-10 bars of dish soap using these round flower molds but you can absolutely pour this into a loaf. Â Tallow can take a few days to harden enough for hand cutting which is why I choose to use the single bar molds as I can let it sit for weeks until I remove it from the molds if I want to!
- Weigh out essential oils into a small glass container using the blend of your choice.
- Again, observing soap making safety and lye safety and wearing the appropriate PPE, add the lye solution to the oils.
- Blend with a stick blender until light trace is reached.
- After trace is reached, add in essential oils of your choice. Â Blend to combine.
- Pour soap batter into prepared soap molds.
- Lightly tap molds to remove any air bubbles and spritz with 91% rubbing alcohol to encourage any bubbles to the surface.
- Allow to cool down in a cool area until set. Â Tallow or lard based soap can take several days to harden enough that it's not a sticky mess if cutting a loaf.
- Remove soap from mold and allow to cure 6-8 weeks. Â The longer the soap cures the better as it gives the bar time to dry out and evaporate the water content so it lasts longer. Â You can use them after 48 hours, but I'd recommend just a teensy bit of patience for best results!
To Use:
- Use a dish soap brush or sponge and work the soap bar into a good foamy lather. Â Scrub the soapy brush directly on the dishes to clean and then rinse well. Â Reapply as needed. Store bar in a place it can drain, like a draining soap dish, and dry between uses to have the longest lasting bar possible.
