Soap produced with ingredients from regenerative farming and agriculture is not only sustainable, organic, toxic-free and zero waste, but also tells a story of our history.
We humans have a tendency to try to reinvent the wheel unnecessarily. Especially when it comes to beauty products. We cut corners by using chemicals, overlooking the negative impact of ingredients harvested and used on the health of our planet.
When it comes to soap, organic toxic-free soap used to be hard to find. But today the market is brimming with ‘eco’ options, created based on capitalism’s ‘sustainable’ standards. Most often, even these ‘green’ options hold ingredients grown in ways which harm the biosphere, wildlife and human beings.
But soap could be regenerative (a step beyond sustainable) if we took a minute to look at working with the waste we create. Soap’s incredible inception around 2800 B.C. in Babylon (present-day Iraq), where tallow combined with scented herbs were used to create soaps that had positive impacts on this earth, rather than negative ones.
WHAT IS TALLOW?
For thousands of years, tallow has been used for cooking and as the raw material for candles and soap. Tallow is made from the ‘waste’ fat of animals. Using the waste products of food curation mirrors indigenous ideologies which have existed since time immortal. Showing respect for life taken by honouring and utilising every part, nose-to-tail (instead of burning it, as we do now)
Unlike inorganic materials such as glass or ceramics, soap does not leave any archeological treasures that can be studied to chart its history. Yet it has been around since antiquity, and we have the ancestors of the lands we now call ‘Iran’, to thank.
When tallow is gathered as a byproduct of regenerative organic farming (agroecology, which is Indigenous Ecological Knowledge), it creates a ‘zero-waste’ product which biodegrade at the end of its lifecycle, and climate beneficial in creation.
Regenerative farming mimics the rhythms of the natural world. Resulting in increased biodiversity, enriched soil, improved watersheds, and mitigation of global warming. Leaving the earth and its people better off for the fact some harvest for conscious consumption has occurred.
To support this regenerative future, I have handpicked a few organic tallow soaps. Which are byproducts of regenerative farms, rewilding projects and gardens. Each brand listed is a small business, producing ethically outside the system of supremacy, with their efforts concentrated on relationships of reciprocity.
REGENERATIVE ORGANIC TALLOW SOAPS
SUMMER SOLACE
credentials | woc-owned, indigenous, regenerative, USA grown ingredients, sustainable, ethical, zero-waste, nontoxic, organic, small-batch, handmade
price | from $15.00
Made from the rendered fat of California pasture-raised and holistically grazed cows, with truly extra-virgin olive oil grown by Seka Hills on Native American land by the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation in Capay Valley, California. Combined with the highest grade of organic essential oils and wildcrafted Absolutes from Ecologically responsible natural perfumers in California, Summer Solace Tallow is one of the few brands out there producing in ways which are truly regenerative, seed-to-soap and back again.
SHOP SUMMER SOLACE TALLOW SOAP
WHITE OAK PASTURES
credentials | regenerative, upcycled, USA grown ingredients, sustainable, ethical, zero-waste, nontoxic, small-batch
price | $5.00
White Oak Pastures is a zero-waste regenerative agriculture farm based in the United States. Their soaps are made from the tallow which is a byproduct of holistically mob grazed beef. Combined with ethical essential oils. The farm wastes nothing of the animals they rear, which sequester more carbon than they emit in their lifecycles due to the holistic planned grazing practised, a principle of indigenous agroecology.
SHOP WHITE OAK PASTURES
HOG & TALLOW
credentials | regenerative, UK grown ingredients, sustainable, ethical, zero-waste, nontoxic, small-batch
price | £3.25
Hog & Tallow is a zero-waste regenerative agriculture farm based in the UK. Their soaps are made from the tallow of holistically mob grazed cows, West County rapeseed oil, local by-produce and foraged botanicals.
SHOP HOG & TALLOW
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