Jessa joined the homestead in 2018, becoming official family in January 2019 when she married Pioneer Son. Jessa has been a delightful addition. Her quick wit keeps us all laughing and her willingness to dig in and help with any type of project has allowed her to learn things quickly. She has decided to begin sharing more, from her special point of view, so that others might be less intimidated to try new ideas and projects. Her writing matches her personality. It is lively and witty. Enjoy!
News flash….coconut oil is in everything! I mean everything! And there is this new fad that coconut oil is this miracle cure for whatever ails you. Got dry hair? Dog sheds too much? Can’t get a nut off that bolt? No fuel for your tractor? COCONUT oil is the answer. OK, so maybe I made that last one up but I am little bitter about it. I am allergic to coconut and it is a never ending battle of reading labels on everything to determine if I can use it or not. So, I decided I was going to start making my own bath products. After spending hours on Pinterest looking up recipes for lotion, I found that most of those either call for coconut oil or want you to use some crazy seed oil that costs more than my car for a bottle.
As homesteaders, we try to use what we have on hand and use all of any animal that we process. So I figured there had to be something we already had around here I could use as a substitute for the coconut oil. After talking to Lisa about how soft her hands were when rendering and canning lard, I started researching. There are tons of recipes for using tallow to make lotion and we just so happened to have a bunch of pig fat in the freezers so, what the heck, two birds-one stone…make some room in the freezer and pantry and get some lotion. I started experimenting with making lard based lotions.
My first batch I learned a few things, first off, if you ever plan on using your beeswax for anything, don’t let it set up into a giant block. You will NEVER get it broken up. There was a hammer, knives, and maybe even a Saws-all involved. I found that the silicone ice cube trays work great you can create small cubes of it that are easily measurable by weight.
The second thing I learned, after having a couple people try it out/ was that if someone knows there is lard in it you might want to make sure you use a more powerful smelling essential oil or else they get it in their head that they smell like they just lathered themselves in bacon. I mean, I like the smell of bacon, and if you are trying to attract yourself a man with a dad-bod that might work.
Third if you find a recipe that calls for coconut oil and you want to use lard instead, I recommend halving the amount. Lard seems to go a little further than coconut oil and doesn’t set up the same. Worst case scenario, if you adjust the recipe and don’t like the consistency you end up with, you can always melt it down and add more lard or beeswax to get the feel you are looking for.
Fourth, I learned in that first venture was it is best to melt your beeswax first and then add in your lard. I am sure this has to do with flash point and melting points, but to be honest, if you go lard first it kind of smells like you burnt breakfast. Being an anxious person, I don’t like wondering if someone burnt toast or if I am having a stroke.
Most importantly I learned when doing anything that involves beeswax DO NOT use any utensils or pans or whatnot that you are really attached to. The beeswax will never come off. People call glitter the herpes of crafting….they have never used beeswax. It gets everywhere and it’s stuck for life.
On my next try, I decided I was going to play around with lotion bars. I love the idea of lotion bars because they are great for throwing in your purse or center console. I used again silicone baking pans. I was slightly worried about how the bars would hold their shape with changing temps and whatnot. I have had a few in my desk drawer at work stored in a ziplock bag for about a month now and no issues.
For the bars, I melted what would be equal to 8 cups of shredded beeswax. Then, I added in one quart jar of lard. Once they were all melted together, I added lavender essential oil until I was satisfied with the amount of scent that I was getting. Then, I poured the mix into the silicone molds. I put them in the fridge to set. (This isn’t something you have to do I just needed the counter space and it makes them set faster.) That’s it! Easy! Sorry if you were hoping for some really detailed instruction and a lengthy process.
I am planning to try some more bath products, using what we have in excess around the homestead. I am thinking of trying powered milk bath next, by dehydrating our frozen raw milk. I will make another post on that once I have given it a whirl.
Beeswax, DIY, DIY Skin Care, homestead, Lard, Lotion, skin care
simple enough to easily try; thank you, and I like your witty writing!