Healing Season

**NOT EVERYTHING MAKES IT INTO OUR TALLOW…**

Have you ever wondered what gets left behind when we render beef fat?

This is another little look behind the scenes at Healing Season.

We start with Tasmanian beef suet and use our steam-rendering method to gradually melt the fat.

Once rendered, the liquid tallow is separated from the remaining solids using muslin cloth.

And look at what's left behind!

All that solid material is separated from the golden liquid tallow we're collecting underneath.

It's one of those jobs that isn't particularly glamorous, but it's an important part of preparing the tallow we use in our handmade soaps and skincare.

We take the time to do this ourselves, right here in Tasmania.

And that beautiful golden tallow at the end? It's ready for the next stage of our preparation process.

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THIS IS HOW OUR TALLOW STARTS…

Long before it becomes a bar of soap or a jar of balm, we're here doing this.

Steam rendering our beef fat.

We start with salt in the bottom of the pan, followed by a sieve lined with muslin cloth and our prepared beef fat.

Then comes something you might not expect.

We pour around three cups of boiling water directly over the beef fat.

The hot water helps warm the fat and gets the melting process underway, and if you watch closely, you can actually see it starting almost immediately.

Then the lid goes on and we let the steam do its work.

As the fat renders, the liquid tallow passes through the muslin and sieve, while the proteins, connective tissue and other solids are left behind.

But my favourite bit might be what happens at the end.

Look at that tallow.

It looks like it's at a rolling boil, doesn't it?

It's not.

There's water underneath the melted tallow, and THAT is what's boiling. The bubbles travel up through the liquid tallow, making the whole thing look like the tallow itself is boiling.

Once you know what's actually happening inside the pot, it's pretty fascinating to watch.

There is so much that happens behind the scenes before our tallow ever becomes a finished Healing Season product.

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WATCH THE FAT SLOWLY DISAPPEAR…

This is one of those parts of our process that I could honestly sit and watch for ages.

Before our tallow becomes soap, balm or any of the other products we make with it, we first have to carefully render the beef fat.

And this is what steam rendering looks like.

There are around three cups of water in the pan underneath our sieve. As that water creates steam, you can actually watch the fat slowly melt and pass through the sieve into the pan below.

But look closely at what's being left behind.

The proteins, connective tissue and other solids remain in the sieve rather than sitting in the rendered fat.

That's one of the reasons we love this method. Keeping those solids separated from the rendered fat helps us create the cleaner, more neutral-smelling tallow we're looking for.

It's a simple process, but I find the transformation fascinating.

And there's a lot more that happens to our tallow after this stage before it's ready to become a Healing Season product.

This is where it all begins.

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More than just tallow soap.

At Healing Season, we create handmade Tasmanian tallow soaps, skincare and solid hair care in small batches, using simple and thoughtfully selected ingredients.

Explore our colourful tallow soap range, Vanilla Bean and Citrus Spice skincare collections, and solid shampoo bars.

Free shipping on orders over $50.

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Explore the full range: https://healingseason.com.au

I CHANGED ONE THING HALFWAY THROUGH THIS BATCH…

And the difference was rather hard to miss.

This was a batch of our Charcoal Detox Tallow Soap with Tea Tree essential oil.

I started making the first, creamy layer as usual, but it thickened incredibly quickly.

So quickly, in fact, that filming went completely out the window while I concentrated on getting it into the moulds! 😂

Then it was time to make the charcoal layer.

This time I decided to change one thing.

I put the mixer away.

Instead, I mixed the charcoal layer completely by hand.

And LOOK at the difference.

The beautiful black batter stayed smooth and fluid, giving me so much more time to work with it and pour it over the first layer.

Same batch.
Two layers.
Two different mixing methods.

Then came the best bit — unmoulding and cutting the bars to finally see how those layers had come together.

Making products by hand means you're constantly learning from what happens in each batch.

Sometimes the smallest change makes an enormous difference.

And in this case?

I think the mixer might be staying in the cupboard for a while. 😂

Our Charcoal Detox Tallow Soap with Tea Tree essential oil, handmade in small batches here in Tasmania.

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THE FIRST CUT IS ALWAYS THE PAYOFF…

This is one of my favourite parts of making handmade soap.

You can plan the colours.

You can create the swirls.

You can have a pretty good idea of what you're hoping for…

But you don't really know what you've created until you make that first cut.

For our Lavender Luxe Tallow Soap, that starts with traditional tallow, Australian pink clay, lavender essential oil and that beautiful purple swirl.

Once the soap is ready, it's out of the moulds, the edges are tidied up and then comes the moment I've been waiting for.

The first cut.

And suddenly you can see all those colours hiding inside.

That's also one of the things I love about handmade soap, every cut reveals something slightly different.

The swirls move.
The patterns change.
No two bars are exactly the same.

And I think that's rather lovely.

This is our Lavender Luxe Tallow Soap, handmade by us in small batches here in Tasmania.

Are you as obsessed with watching soap being cut as I am? 😂

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WE MADE A SOAP FOR PEOPLE WHO'D RATHER BE OUTSIDE.

Meet the newest member of the Healing Season family - The Bush Bar.

This one came from a pretty simple idea.

When you're camping, fishing, travelling, heading to the beach or just spending the weekend outdoors, you don't want to cart half the bathroom around with you.

You want something simple and practical that you can throw in with your gear and take on the next adventure.

So we created the Bush Bar.

A traditional tallow soap with a fresh Tea Tree and Lemongrass essential oil scent, made for the people who feel most at home outside.

And because this is Healing Season, we wanted the packaging to be practical too.

Nothing fancy for something that's meant to head bush.

Just a hardworking little bar, ready for wherever you're going next.

Camping.
Fishing.
Beach days.
Road trips.
Weekends away.

This is only the beginning for our Bush Bar range, and I'm rather excited about where we're going with this one.

Handmade in Tasmania.

THE BUSH BAR

One Bar. Endless Adventures.

Where would you take yours?

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A ROLLING PIN… FOR DISH SOAP? 😂

I promise there is actually a reason for this.

When I make our Tallow Dish Soap, some of the batch is poured into ramekins and the rest goes into lengths of poly pipe.

The pipe gives us those lovely round solid dish soap bars.

Getting the soap INTO the pipe is the easy part.

Getting it back OUT without covering it in fingerprints and dents is where things get interesting.

Because the new soap is still soft enough to mark, I don't want to push directly against it with my fingers.

So I put one of our already-hardened dish soaps underneath the new soap. That gives me a firm, flat surface to push against.

And then…

Out comes the rolling pin. 😂

I use it to gently push everything through the pipe until the new round soap slides out.

Is it a slightly strange-looking system?

Absolutely.

Does it work?

Beautifully.

Just another little behind-the-scenes glimpse at how we make our solid Tallow Dish Soap here at Healing Season.

Apparently soapmaking requires a few more kitchen utensils than you'd expect!

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WHY DO WE INFUSE COFFEE FOR 36 HOURS… THEN PUT IT BACK IN?

Our Coffee Scrub Tallow Soap actually starts a day and a half before I make the soap.

First, I freshly grind coffee beans and add them directly to our tallow.

Then they sit together on low heat for 36 hours while the coffee slowly infuses into the tallow.

Once that's finished, I strain all those coffee grounds back OUT.

The infused tallow is weighed into the correct amounts for each batch…

…and then, yes, I put coffee grounds straight back IN. 😂

Those grounds are deliberately added to remain throughout the finished soap and give the bar its characteristic speckled appearance and physical scrub.

Then it's time for the lye water, mixing, pouring, unmoulding and finally cutting.

And that's when I learnt something from this batch.

Next time, I'm grinding the coffee a little finer!

Some of the larger grounds made cutting the bars trickier than I would have liked. That's one of the things I love about making everything ourselves, there's always something to learn and something to tweak for the next batch.

No added fragrance needed for the story of this bar.

Just traditional tallow soapmaking, freshly ground coffee and 36 hours of patience.

Our Coffee Scrub Tallow Soap, handmade in small batches here in Tasmania.

Would you have guessed it started 36 hours before the actual soapmaking?

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15 INGREDIENTS. ONE LITTLE BAR.

Our Botanical Tallow Soap might look fairly simple from the outside, but there is a LOT happening inside it.

This is one of our more complex soap recipes, and every ingredient was chosen with purpose.

At the heart of the bar is traditional tallow, along with coconut oil and olive oil that we infuse ourselves with chamomile tea, green tea and cloves before we even begin making the soap.

Then we add raw honey, turmeric, black walnut hull, ginger and vitamin E.

And finally comes the scent, a warm botanical blend of sweet orange, frankincense, lavender and clove bud essential oils.

What I find particularly interesting about this recipe is the history behind so many of its ingredients.

Tallow and olive oil have long histories in traditional soapmaking. Chamomile, green tea, cloves, turmeric, ginger and black walnut hull all have their own fascinating histories in traditional botanical preparations, while honey has been used in bathing and skin preparations for generations.

We don't use those histories to promise that one little rinse-off bar will perform miracles.

They're simply part of what inspired this recipe.

So what are the 15 ingredients hiding inside?

Tallow
Olive oil
Coconut oil
Chamomile tea
Green tea
Cloves
Raw honey
Turmeric
Black walnut hull
Ginger
Vitamin E
Sweet orange essential oil
Frankincense essential oil
Lavender essential oil
Clove bud essential oil

15 thoughtfully chosen ingredients.

One little handmade bar.

This is our Botanical Tallow Soap, made by us in small batches here in Tasmania.

Which ingredient surprised you most?

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