Why we still use tallow

I get asked about tallow more than almost anything else at the table. Sometimes it is curiosity. Sometimes it is a polite wrinkle of the nose. I do not mind either one. I used to have questions too.
I started making soap for my own skin and for my family. I wanted a clean that felt soft and natural, not tight. When I began reading old soap recipes — the kind people made before there was a whole aisle of bottles — tallow was in most of them. Not because it was trendy. Because it worked, it was what they had, and it made a good bar.
So I tried it.
Tallow is rendered beef fat. I use grass-fed tallow. It is a simple, traditional ingredient, and it is believed to be rich in the same kinds of fatty acids skin already makes for itself. I cannot promise what your skin will do with that. I can tell you what I notice in the pot and in the dish. The batter behaves. The finished bar is firm. It lasts. The lather is creamy instead of wild and thin. A lot of folks who pick one up tell me it leaves them feeling clean without that squeaky after-feel.
There is a practical side too, and I will not pretend otherwise. Tallow is economical. A little of it goes a long way in a recipe. It helps me keep a nourishing bar at a price I am willing to ask at a Saturday market. Waste less, use a whole animal fat that already exists, make a better bar. That math still makes sense to me.
Why it makes a harder bar is not magic. Tallow is a hard fat. In soap, hard fats help the loaf set up and help the bar stand up to Florida showers. Soft oils make a gentle wash. Hard fats keep that wash from disappearing in a week. I want both. Tallow is how I get the backbone without loading the recipe with a dozen extras.
Now. I know tallow is not for everybody. That is why a full plant-based collection sits right beside it.
Plant-based, in my shop, means an olive-oil or Coconut Oil base — plant-only, still real soap, still mixed and cut by hand, still cured until I am proud of it. If you want nothing from an animal in your wash, that is the shelf. I will walk you there myself. I would rather you leave with the bar that suits your house than nod along and take a tallow bar you will not use.
So that is the honest version.
I still use tallow because it is traditional. Because it makes one of the best, longest-wearing bars I know how to make. Because it is a natural fat, and a clean with it is meant to feel soft and nourishing, not stripped. And I still make plant-based soap because choice belongs to you, not to my favorite recipe.
If you want to see the difference, come to Flagler Beach on Saturday or European Village on Sunday. I will put one of each in your hands. You can decide. I like that part.
— Cheryl