Raising the Bar: Why I Make Tallow Soap

Before you fall for the scent, the packaging, or the wilderness mascot, turn the bar over and read what you’re actually buying.

Most of us don’t put much thought into our soap. We find a scent we like, grab a familiar brand, and move on. Fair enough. It’s soap. How complicated does it need to be?

But turn the package over, and you might find something worth paying attention to.

That bar you’ve been buying for years might not actually be soap.

There’s soap, and then there’s syndet.

Syndet is short for synthetic detergent. These are the cleansing ingredients behind many products labeled “beauty bar” or “cleansing bar.”

Traditional soap starts with fats and oils that react with an alkali through a process called saponification. That reaction creates soap. Both kinds of products can clean your skin, but they take different routes to get there. 

At Brass Tacs, I make traditional soap with tallow. It’s a deliberate choice, and it starts with what I want in the finished bar.

Tallow makes an excellent foundation.

A good tallow bar feels substantial in your hand. It’s firm, produces a rich, creamy lather, and holds up well when you give it a chance to dry between uses.

That’s what I want from something I reach for every day.

From there, I build each formula with other carefully chosen fats and oils. Olive oil, castor oil, shea butter, and sweet almond oil each bring something different to the recipe. The balance matters. Adding good ingredients to a pot doesn’t automatically make good soap any more than stocking a kitchen makes someone a chef.

And the quality starts before I make the batch.

My tallow comes from a small family farm co-op in rural Wisconsin. American-raised. Grass-fed. Low-temperature dry-rendered. Zero additives.

I know where it comes from and how it’s handled. If an ingredient is going to form the foundation of my products, those are questions I expect to be able to answer.

“Natural” should come with an explanation.

The word is everywhere. On boxes, bottles, websites, and labels decorated with just enough greenery to look convincing.

I’d rather tell you what’s actually in the soap.

Peppermint Grove starts with tallow and olive oil, scented with peppermint, lemongrass, and eucalyptus essential oils. Fresh, herbal, and a little encouragement for mornings when the coffee hasn’t caught up yet.

 

Citrus & Spice takes a warmer direction. A tallow-based bar with coconut milk, turmeric, and a citrus-forward essential oil blend with notes of clove and anise. Bright citrus up front, a little spice behind it. A gold bar with some personality.

Different formulas. Different characters. Ingredients chosen for a reason.

That’s what I want “natural” to mean when I use it: something specific enough that we can have a conversation about it.

Essential oils, fragrance oils, and leaving well enough alone.

Scent is personal. Some people want something fresh and lively. Others would prefer their soap keep a lower profile.

For my scented bars, I use essential oils—the aromatic materials extracted from plants. They give me the citrus, mint, herbal, and woodsy notes I enjoy working with.

Fragrance oils are formulated scent blends that can contain synthetic aroma ingredients, naturally derived ingredients, or both. They offer a much wider range of scents. My choice is to work with essential oils and the character they bring to my formulas.

But natural scent is still scent. Essential oils can bother sensitive skin, too. If fragrance is a trigger for you, a botanical name doesn’t give it a free pass. (aad.org)

That’s why some of my bars have no added fragrance or essential oils.

Oat & Honey brings together tallow, sweet almond oil, shea butter, and castor oil, with oats and honey. No added scent. A straightforward option for someone who wants to keep that part of their routine simple.

 

Every bar doesn’t need to announce itself from the other end of the hallway.

Your skin deserves some consideration.

Dryness. Itching. Sensitivity. These are familiar problems for plenty of people. Eczema alone affects roughly 31 million Americans. (nationaleczema.org)

There are many reasons skin becomes irritated. But something you wash with every day deserves a place in the conversation.

If your current wash contains an ingredient your skin doesn’t tolerate, choosing a formula without it can make a positive difference. Understanding the ingredients gives you a useful place to start. A shorter list isn’t a guarantee, but it can make the conversation easier.

That’s part of why I offer different options, including The Pine Tar Bar.

It combines grass-fed tallow with pine tar, sweet almond oil, shea butter, and castor oil. No added fragrance or essential oils. Its earthy scent comes from the ingredients themselves.

Pine tar’s medicinal history stretches back more than 2,000 years, and topical preparations have long been used for skin complaints including eczema, psoriasis, and dry, itchy skin. That history belongs to the ingredient; it isn’t a promise that my bar treats those conditions. (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)

It also goes back considerably further than Dr. Squatch.

You can spend six figures on marketing and put a mythical wilderness creature on the box. That doesn’t automatically make what’s inside good soap.

Turn it over. Read the ingredients. Make the product earn your loyalty.

Why I make mine this way.

I value the whole bar: the source of the tallow, the balance of the formula, the creamy lather, and the way it feels in your hands.

I want scent where it serves the product and the option to leave it out. I want ingredients I can explain and sourcing I can stand behind.

And I want you to be able to ask a question and get an answer from the person who actually makes your soap.

That’s me, making it in small batches here in South Jersey.

You can explore the full range in the Brass Tacs Bar Soaps collection, including the bars mentioned above.

You don’t need to become a soapmaker to make a more informed choice. Just take a few seconds to look past the front of the package.

The brand you’ve always bought has had your attention for years.

Make it earn the next purchase.

 

Jeff Taccarino

Founder/ Maker

Brass Tacs Balm and Wax