Do most shaving soaps have talow in them?

**icecow** · 09-18-2006, 04:17 AM

Smart girls have informed me not to use bar soap on the face. The tallow drys the face skin (and clogs pores?). They recommend liquid soaps for the face (ones meant for the face), because tallow is the ingredient that gives soap their solid form.

There are glyserine soaps that are solid. My working assumption is a glyserine soap bar can be solid without the use of tallow.

Roughly how many of these shaving soaps use tallow? Are they all glyserine based?

If someone could clear this up for me I'd apprieciate it.

Sorry for the spelling.

**rustyblade** · 09-18-2006, 05:27 AM

This is a load of nonsense. Nearly all liquid soaps contain sodium laureth sulphates (detergent) which are worse for the skin. Tallow based soaps are based animal fats and others are based on vegetable. I started using a tallow based soap (Kent Bath Soap) and my face has never been better. Mostly it is a personal thing, but that argument that bar soap is bad for your face is nonsense, it is a way to sell special "face cleansers."

**Phog Allen** · 09-18-2006, 05:43 AM

Hi icecow. Richard is correct. You will see much ado by a lot of people about hand crafted soaps needing to be made from only vegetable oils. This is complete horse flop. Soaps were made for centuruies using nothing but beef, pig, and sheep tallows. That plus lye(ALL soap is lye + fat after it's gone through saponification. The process that creates soap). It you get a bar of soap from someone who knows what they're doing, you will never match it for efficacy by any soap from a manufacturer. At least that's been my experience and I've used Scottish Fine Soaps, Asquith and Summerset, and a couple of other expensive European brands. They are great soaps no doubt, but they are not superior to the hand crafted stuff you get from good vendors. Some really nice soaps can be made from a combo of animal and veggy oils but I've used soaps that were predominantly tallow with coconut oil added for lather and they are superb. Most of the BEST shave soaps you'll ever use are tallow based and of course, you use these on your face. Just experiment with different stuff. By the by, the stuff you see on most store shelves is NOT soap. They are detergent/deodorant bars. They are very harsh and drying. Check out some local arts and craft shows. Doubtless there will be a soap maker or two at these shows. Hey, I'm not trying to sound condescending, it always pays to sample skin products. Everyone reacts differently to varying cleansers. BTW, tallow soaps do NOT clog your pores.

Regards, Todd

**icecow** · 10-07-2006, 08:32 PM

Originally Posted by Phog Allen

Hi icecow. Richard is correct. You will see much ado by a lot of people about hand crafted soaps needing to be made from only vegetable oils. This is complete horse flop. Soaps were made for centuruies using nothing but beef, pig, and sheep tallows. That plus lye(ALL soap is lye + fat after it's gone through saponification. The process that creates soap). It you get a bar of soap from someone who knows what they're doing, you will never match it for efficacy by any soap from a manufacturer. At least that's been my experience and I've used Scottish Fine Soaps, Asquith and Summerset, and a couple of other expensive European brands. They are great soaps no doubt, but they are not superior to the hand crafted stuff you get from good vendors. Some really nice soaps can be made from a combo of animal and veggy oils but I've used soaps that were predominantly tallow with coconut oil added for lather and they are superb. Most of the BEST shave soaps you'll ever use are tallow based and of course, you use these on your face. Just experiment with different stuff. By the by, the stuff you see on most store shelves is NOT soap. They are detergent/deodorant bars. They are very harsh and drying. Check out some local arts and craft shows. Doubtless there will be a soap maker or two at these shows. Hey, I'm not trying to sound condescending, it always pays to sample skin products. Everyone reacts differently to varying cleansers. BTW, tallow soaps do NOT clog your pores.

Regards, Todd

I forgot to say thanks, thanks.

**mikey** · 10-07-2006, 09:10 PM

hello everyone,

one thing to remember is that soap is the end product of the reaction (saponification) of lye and tallow. therefore, if they were mixed in the proper ratios there should not be any tallow in the bar of soap and thus the tallow could not possibly clog your pores.

hope this helps.

thanks,
mike

**TraderJoe** · 10-08-2006, 03:13 PM

Well, maybe I'm all alone on this one, but tallow soaps dry the hell out of my face if used for cleansing.

So I use a liquid cleanser, but it also does not contain SLS or any other alleged harmful cleanser. This is the only way I cleanse my face:

This is a cleansing gel
http://www.avalonorganics.com/?id=80&pid=1

This is a cleansing milk
http://www.avalonorganics.com/?id=80&pid=360

Both of these are, IMVHO, excellent products. They clean my face, but do not dry it out.

Interestingly, I can use most tallow-based shaving soaps.

**crackstar** · 10-08-2006, 03:21 PM

my 2 favorites, Erasmic, and Arko are tallow based, but they don't dry my skin skin out. Gee, I used Surrey and Col. Conk lime, which are 2 glycerin based soaps, and I had a major dryness problem.

Jeff