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Scrub bars

Tallow gardener's hand bar

Three cream soap bars flecked with grey pumice beside a small dish of pumice powder and sprigs of lavandin and peppermint on a turmeric yellow backdrop

A hard, hard-working hand bar for gardeners and anyone with grimy hands: tallow and coconut oil with olive and castor, packed with fine pumice for grip on soil and grease, and scented with lavandin and peppermint. Keep it by the back door, not the bath.

Skill
Beginner
Method
Cold process
Batch
1000 g of oils about 1501 g of batter
Hands-on
1 hour
Cure
5 weeks
Gel phase
Either way gel or not, both work
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What you need

For 1000 g of oils, which fills a 1.5 litre loaf mould. Weigh everything, liquids included.

Coconut Oil · 35.0 % 350 g 12.35 oz
Olive Oil · 35.0 % 350 g 12.35 oz
Edible Tallow · 25.0 % 250 g 8.82 oz
Castor Oil · 5.0 % 50 g 1.76 oz
Sodium hydroxide (NaOH) · the lye, 100 % pure 145.1 g 5.12 oz
Distilled water · for a 35 % lye solution 269.4 g 9.50 oz
Pumice powder, fine · 5 tbsp, stirred into 30 g of the recipe's olive oil first 57 g 2.01 oz
Lavandin essential oil · 2.0 % of the oils, at trace 20 g 0.71 oz
Peppermint essential oil · 1.0 % of the oils, at trace 10 g 0.35 oz
Superfat
5 %
Temperatures
Oils and lye solution each at 38 to 43 °C (100 to 110 °F)

Resize or change it in the calculator

Method

  1. Get ready

    Put on splash goggles, gloves and long sleeves, open a window and keep children and pets out of the room. Line a 1.5 litre loaf mould, and wear a dust mask while you measure the pumice, which is fine rock dust.

  2. Weigh the oils

    Weigh 350 g coconut oil and 250 g tallow into the pot, and 350 g olive oil and 50 g castor oil into a jug. Pour 30 g of the olive oil into a small bowl for the scrub.

  3. Weigh the rest

    Measure 5 tbsp (about 57 g) fine pumice powder, and weigh 20 g lavandin and 10 g peppermint essential oil into a small glass. Weigh 269.4 g distilled water into a heatproof jug and 145.1 g sodium hydroxide into a dry container.

  4. Make the lye solution

    At the open window, pour the sodium hydroxide slowly into the water, never the water onto the lye, and stir until clear, keeping your face out of the vapour. It is a fairly strong solution and runs hot, so leave it to cool somewhere safe and labelled.

  5. Wet the scrub

    Stir the pumice into the 30 g of olive oil to a gritty paste with no dry pockets.

  6. Melt the fats

    Melt the coconut oil and tallow on a low heat until clear, then stir in the rest of the olive oil and the castor oil. Let the oils and the lye solution each come to 38 to 43 °C (100 to 110 °F), warm enough to keep the tallow melted.

  7. Blend to light trace

    Pour the lye solution into the oils down the shaft of the stick blender and pulse in short bursts, stirring between them, until a drizzle leaves a faint line that sinks back within seconds.

  8. Add the scent

    Stir in the essential oils with a spatula.

  9. Thicken and add the pumice

    Pulse a little more, to a pudding-like trace that holds a drizzle on its surface: in thinner batter the pumice sinks to the bottom of the bars. Stir in the pumice paste by hand until the specks are even.

  10. Pour and insulate

    Spoon or pour the batter into the mould, tap it firmly on the worktop and smooth the top. Cover it and wrap it in a towel; it will probably gel, which is fine.

  11. Clean up

    With your gloves still on, wipe the gritty batter off the pot and tools with paper towels into the bin rather than down the sink, then wash everything in hot soapy water.

  12. Unmould and cut

    After 24 to 48 hours, when the loaf is firm, put your gloves back on, unmould it and cut it into bars about 2.5 cm (1 in) thick with an old knife or a wire cutter, since pumice blunts a good blade.

  13. Cure

    Stand the bars on edge on a rack with air around them, out of the sun, for four to six weeks, turning them every few days.

Tips

  • Pumice is sold in grades from extra fine to coarse. Fine grips grime without scratching; coarse feels like sandpaper on the back of the hand. For a gentler hand bar, use half as much.
  • Buy tallow ready rendered for soap, or render beef suet yourself and strain it well, so the bar smells of nothing. The list under Try it differently swaps the tallow for lard or palm oil and opens each in the calculator with its own lye; add the pumice and scent there.
  • Our other gardener's bar, the gardener's pumice scrub bar, is palm-based with cornmeal beside the pumice and a lemongrass and cedarwood scent. For a body scrub, see the apricot seed scrub bar.
  • For hands that wash all day or are already sore, choose the 8 % version under Try it differently, and leave out the peppermint, using 30 g of lavandin alone.

Why make it

Made for hands that have been in soil, grease or paint: a bar for the potting shed, the garage or the back door. Coconut oil at 35 % gives a quick, brisk lather that lifts grime, cleansing 25 on our scale, and tallow makes the bar hard and slow to wear away, hardness 47. The pumice, powdered volcanic rock, does the scrubbing, and pumice hand soap is a workshop classic; Fisher calls it a heavy-duty scrub for mechanics' and gardeners' soaps. It is rough by design, so keep it for hands and feet, never faces or broken skin. At a 5 % superfat it is an everyday bar, and hands washed many times a day may be happier with the 8 % version listed under Try it differently.

Sources

  • The Complete Photo Guide to Soap Making · David Fisher, Creative Publishing International, 2018

What tradition, makers' experience and research say about soaps like this, each labelled for what it is. It is not medical advice, and no soap treats a skin condition: if you have one, ask a doctor or pharmacist.

What the numbers say

  • Lauric acid 17.2 %
  • Myristic acid 7.6 %
  • Palmitic acid 14.3 %
  • Stearic acid 7.8 %
  • Ricinoleic acid 4.4 %
  • Oleic acid 36.4 %
  • Linoleic acid 6.0 %
  • Other 7.0 %

Saturated : unsaturated 51 : 49

Hardness 47 29–54
Cleansing 25 above 12–22
Conditioning 47 44–69
Bubbly lather 29 14–46
Creamy lather 26 16–48

Computed from the fatty acids of the fats above. The bands are what the craft has settled on, not chemistry — a bar outside one is not wrong.

Try it differently

5 variations

The same soap with one thing moved. Each opens in the calculator ready to change again.

From the guides

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Lard and tallow: soaping with animal fats

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What common soap additives do, how much to use and when they go in: sourced doses for sodium lactate, salt, sugar, honey, citric acid, clays, oats and silk.
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Trace: how to tell when soap batter is ready

What trace is, how to read emulsion, light, medium and thick trace, how to spot false trace, and what makes soap batter thicken faster or slower.

Where these proportions come from

Our own construction: coconut oil at 35 % for enough lauric soap to shift soil, tallow for a hard, slow-wearing bar firm enough to hold a coarse abrasive, olive oil and a little castor oil for mildness and lather, at an everyday 5 % superfat. The abrasive is pumice, the scrub Fisher names for mechanics' and gardeners' soaps.

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