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Inexpensive

Soy-free lard and sunflower bar

Three plain white lard and sunflower soap bars beside a block of lard and a small glass jug of golden sunflower oil on a charcoal backdrop

A cheap, hard and creamy bar of lard, coconut oil and high-oleic sunflower oil, with no soybean or canola oil in it. The sunflower oil keeps well, so it needs no antioxidant, and a teaspoon of salt helps the loaf firm up. Unscented.

Skill
Beginner
Method
Cold process
Batch
1000 g of oils about 1436 g of batter
Hands-on
1 hour
Cure
6 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.

Lard · 45.0 % 450 g 15.87 oz
Coconut Oil · 25.0 % 250 g 8.82 oz
Sunflowerseed Oil - High Oleic Acid · 30.0 % 300 g 10.58 oz
Sodium hydroxide (NaOH) · the lye, 100 % pure 141.8 g 5.00 oz
Distilled water · for a 33 % lye solution 287.9 g 10.16 oz
Fine salt · 1 tsp, dissolved in the water before the lye, for a firmer loaf 6 g 0.21 oz
Superfat
5 %
Temperatures
Oils and lye solution each between 35 and 43 °C (95 and 110 °F)

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Method

  1. Get ready

    Put on splash goggles, nitrile gloves and long sleeves, open a window or turn on the extractor fan, and keep children and pets out of the room. Set out a 1.5 litre loaf mould, level, where it can stay for two days.

  2. Weigh the fats

    Weigh 450 g lard and 250 g coconut oil into the pot, and 300 g high-oleic sunflower oil into a jug.

  3. Dissolve the salt

    Weigh 287.9 g distilled water into a heat-safe lye jug and stir in 1 level teaspoon (6 g) of fine salt until it has dissolved completely.

  4. Make the lye solution

    Weigh 141.8 g sodium hydroxide into a small, dry container. By an open window, pour it slowly into the salt water, never the water onto the lye, and stir until it runs clear, keeping your face away from the vapour. Leave it to cool, labelled and out of reach.

  5. Melt the fats

    Melt the lard and coconut oil together on the lowest heat until clear, then pour in the sunflower oil.

  6. Check the temperatures

    Go ahead when the oils and the lye solution are both between 35 and 43 °C (95 and 110 °F). Much cooler and the lard starts to set, which thickens the batter before it has really traced.

  7. Blend to light trace

    Pour the lye solution into the oils down the shaft of the stick blender, then pulse for a few seconds and stir, over and over, until the batter is opaque and a drizzle leaves a faint line on the surface.

  8. Pour and cover

    Pour into the mould, tap it firmly on the worktop to raise air bubbles, and cover it with a lid or board and a folded towel for a day. A warm loaf firms up sooner.

  9. Clean up with your gloves on

    Wipe the raw batter off the pot and tools with paper towels into the bin, then wash everything in hot soapy water.

  10. Unmould and cut

    After 24 to 48 hours, when the loaf is firm and has pulled away from the sides, unmould it with gloves on and cut it into bars about 2.5 cm (1 in) thick. It will be white and still a little soft, which is normal for lard.

  11. Cure for six weeks

    Stand the bars on edge in a dry, airy place out of the sun, a finger's width apart, for six weeks, turning them every few days. Lard soap keeps hardening for weeks, and the full cure makes it last longer in use.

Tips

  • Check that the bottle says high oleic. Ordinary sunflower oil is mostly linoleic acid, needs a little more lye and spots far more easily; if that is all you have, run it through the calculator first and expect the bars to keep less well.
  • The salt is optional and does not change the lye. It helps the loaf firm up and leave the mould sooner; much more than this starts to cut the lather.
  • Use fresh, white lard that smells of nothing. If it smells meaty or sour, the soap will too.
  • Our budget bar uses canola oil with EDTA and rosemary extract to keep it, and our old-fashioned lard bar is simply lard and coconut oil.

Why make it

Our budget bar with high-oleic sunflower oil in place of the canola, for makers who would rather keep soy and rapeseed oils out of their soap. Lard and coconut oil make a hard, creamy bar with a steady lather, and the sunflower oil, mostly oleic acid like olive oil, keeps it mild: cleansing 18 and conditioning 55, a good all-round bar for hands and body. It also keeps better. Ordinary sunflower and soybean oils are more than half linoleic acid, which oxidises and can show as orange spots over a long cure, while the high-oleic kind carries far less (Codex), so this bar needs no antioxidant. Plain lard soap is the farmhouse bar of tradition, and it wants patience: lard bars start soft and keep hardening for weeks, so give it six weeks on the rack. The salt only helps the loaf firm up sooner.

Sources

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 12.3 %
  • Myristic acid 5.5 %
  • Palmitic acid 14.6 %
  • Stearic acid 8.9 %
  • Oleic acid 47.0 %
  • Linoleic acid 6.9 %
  • Other 7.0 %

Saturated : unsaturated 45 : 55

Hardness 41 29–54
Cleansing 18 12–22
Conditioning 55 44–69
Bubbly lather 18 14–46
Creamy lather 23 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

7 variations

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

From the guides

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Intermediate 10 min read

Lard and tallow: soaping with animal fats

Why lard and tallow make hard, mild, creamy soap, how to render and store them at home, how beef, mutton and pork fat differ, and classic recipes.
Advanced 13 min read

Dreaded orange spots (DOS) and rancid soap

What the orange spots on handmade soap are, why polyunsaturated oils, old fats and trace metals cause them, and which additives the tests show actually help.
Intermediate 25 min read

The soaping oils: what each one brings to a bar

Twenty-five soaping oils, butters and waxes: what each does in a bar and why, the share makers give it, and what to watch for, with figures from our records.

Where these proportions come from

Our own formulation: our budget bar with no soybean or canola oil, lard 45 %, coconut oil 25 % and high-oleic sunflower oil 30 %, which is mostly oleic acid and keeps well enough to need no antioxidant. A teaspoon of salt in the water, at the usual soapmaking dose, helps the loaf firm up.

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