WHY TALLOW?    (or even lard & duck fat)

 As Wikipedia tells us, in chemistry, a soap is a salt of a fatty acid. The fatty acids in tallow are much closer in molecular structure to the oils our own skin produces than more commonly used plant oils, and it is extremely rich in the same kinds of lipids present in youthful, vibrant skin. Being rich in vitamins A, D, E, & K doesn't hurt either! Soap, at it's inception, was regularly made from a combination of animal fats and alkaline salts (the Egyptians), and tallow and ash (the Celts/Germans). Tallow and other fats are also highly sustainable, as they are quite often a rather underused by product of the meat industry, unlike many plant oils which lead to the destruction of habitat and clear cutting of rain forests. Quality matters, which is why all of out animal fat comes from pastured, humanely raised animals, from local farms and butchers. 

soapmaker/ mayhemslayer

As a chef interested in both nutrition and food sustainability, it wasn't long before Vellum soap maker/mayhem slayer Melissa Torre started paying attention to not only what she put IN her body, but also ON it. So many commercially available soaps and skin care products today are formulated with ingredients you would never eat, so why slather them on your skin, which, like your digestive system, absorbs all the things you put on it?! After a growing interest and extensive research, Melissa discovered a slew of ingredients, many of which were leftover and excess ingredients in her cafe Cookie Confidentials own kitchen, that held numerous benefits for the skin, most notably, tallow, which is what some of the first soap in recorded history was derived from. Not long after, Melissa stepped away from the world of baked goods and pastry and into the world of upcycled skin care. Creating a product that is comprised of nothing that doesn't directly benefit skin health, along with being able to put to good use many food products that were once headed for the trash bin or compost heap in many commercial kitchens led Melissa to an exciting new venture that combined her love of food and creating in the kitchen with her desire to improve nutrition and food sustainability.