About Flower and Field

Flower and Field Store Photo

Natural Homemade Soaps are made using 100% natural ingredients. I do not use palm oil or synthetic fragrances (only lightly fragranced with essential oils) No neon colours – only naturally occurring clays, botanicals or colouring obtained from nature. My soaps are made with a variety of vegetable oils and also grass-fed organic beef Tallow which I have rendered down myself. Tallow makes a beautiful creamy hard and long lasting bar.

 

Why I use Tallow (or Lard)?

Tallow is the gently rendered down internal fat (suet) of a Beef Cow and Lard the internal fat of a Pig.  It is a white, odourless, shelf-stable fat that makes a great long lasting creamy bar of soap.

Both Tallow and Lard have historically been used for centuries in soap making and other skin care products until it was replaced with chemicals, petroleum based products, chemically fractionated plant products and synthetic products.

Tallow is the hardening agent in a bar of soap – it is what makes a bar of soap not turn into a pile of gloop as soon as it gets wet in your shower. Most cold process soaps are formulated for a six week aging time – which works well if you have a hardening agent such as Tallow, Lard or a vegetable based source such as Palm Oil.

Most farmers, home kill processors and hunters will tell you that the internal fat is something that gets thrown away – most farmers will bury it somewhere on the farm. Most were happy to give me bags of fat that would otherwise have to be disposed of somewhere.  So therefore tallow is a natural sustainable and local New Zealand ingredient.

Tallow is one of the most complimentary moisturizers for our skin. Tallow is a naturally rich source of fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E & K, which are all necessary for overall skin health and integrity and cannot be found in plant based fats. Much like the membrane of our own skin cells, tallow fat cells are made up of roughly 50% saturated fat, which makes tallow an excellent base for our skincare needs.

My soaps have a combination of different oils in them – Tallow, Olive, Coconut, Rice Bran, Castor etc etc – depending on what type of bar you have depends on what oils I have used.

My Tallow experiments so far are some of the best products I have ever used – these include – wonderful lip balms, salves and muscle rubs, underarm liquid deodorant that really works, my regular facial moisturiser, hair conditioner and then to go into my culinary experiments tallow has been used in many savoury dishes such as – the most amazing flaky pastry, cheese sauce, croquettes, popcorn. With the price of butter increasing and also my knowledge of this wonderful ingredient it seems like a no-brainer to substitute it where I can.  (More experiments pending especially about reading the best chips you will ever put in your mouth comes from frying them in Tallow)

 

Products from Flower and Field

By Flower and Field
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By Flower and Field
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By Flower and Field
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By Flower and Field
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