Thread: Why tallow?

Tallow soaps have a great combination of slickness and cushioning.

For me, tallow based soaps seem to have better performance all around, but what I particularly like is how my face feels AFTER the shave. Tallow soaps really seem to condition better than others.

Tallow is a great soap ingredient, and a lot of soaps have reformulated it out to their detriment. That said, plenty of top performing soaps do not have tallow, such as La Toja, MDC, Valobra soft soaps, and Proraso. Creams rarely have tallow, either, so I honestly now believe (I used to be a big tallow fan) that tallow isn't required to make a great soap, although a lot of great soaps use it ( MWF, DR Harris, Arko, Cella, etc. )

Two of my favorite soaps have tallow in the ingredient list (P.160 and Cella). It makes lather more stable and slicking, and the lathering process seems to be encouraged.
However, in my experience, I can tell some drops of glycerin in a soap would give quite the same result in terms of lathering and stability.

Originally Posted by razorguy

However, in my experience, I can tell some drops of glycerin in a soap would give quite the same result in terms of lathering and stability.

IMHO a glycerin/vegetable based soap should stand on its own and not require additional glycerin to "make it perform". Granted, there's always issues such as water quality that will vary from region to region, so as always YMMV....