# One oil for the rest of your life...



## FragranceGuy (Feb 27, 2021)

Hey soap heads!

1.) If you could only use one oil to make soap for personal use (100% bars) for the rest of your life, what oil would you choose and why?

2.) If you could only choose one oil to make soap AND it was the only oil you could use for cooking would your answer change?


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## SPowers (Feb 27, 2021)

1.  Lard
2.  Olive Oil


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## KimW (Feb 27, 2021)

1. Rice Bran  - Lather, Longevity.  -- I'm assuming other additives, like starches and sugars, are permissible in this philosophical discussion!
2. Olive - Taste


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## InnuendOhs (Feb 27, 2021)

1. Lard
2. Olive Oil (I am Italian, can't live without it


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## FragranceGuy (Feb 27, 2021)

Good point @KimW Yes, any additives that aren’t fats are permissible in this hypothetical


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## dibbles (Feb 27, 2021)

As much as I love lard in soap, I might have to choose
1. coconut oil (with a high superfat)
2. olive oil


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## TheGecko (Feb 27, 2021)

1) Olive Oil
2) Lard


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## Zany_in_CO (Feb 27, 2021)

1.) Lard
2.) Lard  ( Think: Grandma's homemade pie crust, cake, biscuits, cookies, fried chicken, French fries, pancakes, French toast, egg-in-a-frame, hash browns...


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## hlee (Feb 27, 2021)

1. Lard
2 Olive oil


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## KimW (Feb 27, 2021)

Zany_in_CO said:


> 1.) Lard
> 2.) Lard  ( Think: Grandma's homemade pie crust, cake, biscuits, cookies, fried chicken, French fries, pancakes, French toast, egg-in-a-frame, hash browns...


This made me giggle!  Lard and... Lard.


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## hlee (Feb 27, 2021)

KimW said:


> 1. Rice Bran  - Lather, Longevity.  -- I'm assuming other additives, like starches and sugars, are permissible in this philosophical discussion!
> 2. Olive - Taste


I still have not used the Rice Bran I ordered. It is on n my to do list and tallow now also but I still have to get that.


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## KimW (Feb 27, 2021)

hlee said:


> I still have not used the Rice Bran I ordered. It is on n my to do list and tallow now also but I still have to get that.


I really like my RBO bars with added sugar and starch - and castor, though that's not allowed in this discussion - LOL.  Search SMF for "Rice Bran" under user @Dawni for lots of pointers!


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## FragranceGuy (Feb 27, 2021)

KimW said:


> I really like my RBO bars with added sugar and starch - and castor, though that's not allowed in this discussion - LOL.  Search SMF for "Rice Bran" under user @Dawni for lots of pointers!


I’m guessing you add the sugar to the lye solution, but what kind of starch and when do you add it? What do they contribute?

I just realized I could probably search RBO under Dawni (as you suggested) rather than pestering you  I’m a noob to forums and I haven’t yet developed my search skills so I’m asking a lot of questions. I hope you all will be patient with me in the beginning.


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## rdc1978 (Feb 27, 2021)

I think extra light olive oil for both.


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## KimW (Feb 27, 2021)

FragranceGuy said:


> I just realized I could probably search RBO under Dawni (as you suggested) rather than pestering you  I’m a noob to forums and I haven’t yet developed my search skills so I’m asking a lot of questions. I hope you all will be patient with me in the beginning.


LOL!  Yes, sugar to the water that's used to make the lye solution.  Starch is rice water that's used as lye water substitute in whole or in part.  Sugar - bubbles/lather.  Starch - hardness (and I think lather too).  But, yes, search for that lady Dawni as I am fairly new to the RBO bars.


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## dibbles (Feb 27, 2021)

FragranceGuy said:


> I’m guessing you add the sugar to the lye solution, but what kind of starch and when do you add it? What do they contribute?


You want to fully dissolve the sugar in the batch water before you add the lye. I take some of the water from the total, warm it a bit, add the sugar, stir until dissolved, stir it back into the batch water and then add the lye. @KimW will have to tell you what she does for starch.

ETA: crossed paths with KimW


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## dalewaite48 (Feb 28, 2021)

FragranceGuy said:


> Hey soap heads!
> 
> 1.) If you could only use one oil to make soap for personal use (100% bars) for the rest of your life, what oil would you choose and why?
> 
> 2.) If you could only choose one oil to make soap AND it was the only oil you could use for cooking would your answer change?


1.Rice Bran, Good lather, low cost :

2 Olive oil, flavor


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## penelopejane (Feb 28, 2021)

Olive oil.


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## ravenscents (Feb 28, 2021)

OO


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## SoapLover1 (Feb 28, 2021)

Lard!!! It’s the best soap you can make and cook with!!!


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## Tigger2 (Feb 28, 2021)

So many Lard fans!!   Which one stinks, Lard or Tallow?  One smells like bacon.  Gross, so gross.  I don't get the attraction when there are so many cool oils out there.  What does lard bring to the soap?  
My one and only oil would be coconut oil!4


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## Terri E (Feb 28, 2021)

Lard in both cases


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## violets2217 (Feb 28, 2021)

1. Lard- sooo nice and creamy!
2. Coconut oil- I just like a cleansing soap& well, I use a lot for dog treats! Gotta keep the dog happy and joints moving smoothly!


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## Mobjack Bay (Feb 28, 2021)

OO, OO


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## Guspuppy (Feb 28, 2021)

CO (salt bars forEVAH)
and
CO!


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## purely soaps (Feb 28, 2021)

Olive oil for soap
Lard for cooking


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## SoapLover1 (Feb 28, 2021)

Tigger2 said:


> So many Lard fans!!   Which one stinks, Lard or Tallow?  One smells like bacon.  Gross, so gross.  I don't get the attraction when there are so many cool oils out there.  What does lard bring to the soap?
> My one and only oil would be coconut oil!4


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## kaygrrl (Feb 28, 2021)

OO & tallow


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## SoapLover1 (Feb 28, 2021)

Who doesn’t like BACON!!! It makes a hard bar that both cleanse and lathers. This whole Vegetable Oil only, other than Olive Oil / Castile Soap, is not what most soaps were made of. They used animal fat ( lard, tallows), as By-Products of processing their meat. All parts of the animal was used. They did not rape & pillage the Rainforest for Palm Oil. When Homesteading, you wasted nothing!


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## Redglade (Feb 28, 2021)

Zany_in_CO said:


> 1.) Lard
> 2.) Lard  ( Think: Grandma's homemade pie crust, cake, biscuits, cookies, fried chicken, French fries, pancakes, French toast, egg-in-a-frame, hash browns...


 
My grandma would eat the lard all by itself, little salted blocks of it. It's wonderful to cook with, but I can't handle all that!


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## KiwiMoose (Feb 28, 2021)

FragranceGuy said:


> I just realized I could probably search RBO under Dawni (as you suggested) rather than pestering you  I’m a noob to forums and I haven’t yet developed my search skills so I’m asking a lot of questions. I hope you all will be patient with me in the beginning.


We forgive you - but only because you play the guitar!

I'm probably OO for soap, and Coconut Oil for cooking.  Olive Oil is not my favourite oil by any stretch, but I think I would prefer it as a single oil soap to any of my other oils.  Coconut oil is all I ever use for cooking/baking/frying, if I'm not using butter.


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## DanB (Feb 28, 2021)

1. Sheep Tallow - I raise all natural grass fed sheep, and use the sheep tallow to make my 100% sheep tallow soap.  The soap is extremely good on my skin, and is excellent.
2. Sheep Tallow - tastes great and is full of minerals and good stuff.


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## AliOop (Feb 28, 2021)

Tigger2 said:


> So many Lard fans!!   Which one stinks, Lard or Tallow?  One smells like bacon.  Gross, so gross.  I don't get the attraction when there are so many cool oils out there.  What does lard bring to the soap?
> My one and only oil would be coconut oil!4


LOL, If your lard smells like bacon, it hasn't been cleaned well enough, that is for sure! 

For my skin, lard makes much better soap than OO, CO, AO, or another other O. It is gentle, low cleansing, and slow-moving, and has a long shelf life. Many folks with skin conditions can only use 100% lard soap, including some in my family. It's easy to mix with other bubbly oils to create amazing soap.

So my choices would be like Zany's: lard, and lard.


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## FragranceGuy (Feb 28, 2021)

OO and lard seem to be the pantry staples so far with RBO and CO trailing. This tread is as fun and informative as I imagined..



KiwiMoose said:


> We forgive you - but only because you play the guitar!
> 
> I'm probably OO for soap, and Coconut Oil for cooking.  Olive Oil is not my favourite oil by any stretch, but I think I would prefer it as a single oil soap to any of my other oils.  Coconut oil is all I ever use for cooking/baking/frying, if I'm not using butter.



Thanks KiwiMoose!  I’m also not a big fan of cooking with OO. I’ve always thought it was OR (over rated!) BUT I do prefer it when making most Italian dishes and some salad dressings. I use butter whenever I can get away with it. I learned a trick from the Waffle House. They cook their eggs with canola oil. As much as I love butter, I GREATLY prefer the flavor of scrambled eggs with canola.


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## ResolvableOwl (Mar 1, 2021)

Folks – where is the COCOA BUTTER?????


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## earlene (Mar 4, 2021)

OO and OO.

OO has been my go-to cooking oil for a very long time.  Although I don't use it for all things, it is the one I use the most frequently and the one I have to replenish the most often.

And I do like 100% OO Soap, so there's that.

To answer *ResolvableOwl*, I actually like 100% Cocoa Butter soap, but it's pretty expensive for a single oil soap, so I wouldn't choose it as my only oil.  I've never cooked with it myself, but I have tasted some really good raw vegan candy make with it & cocoa powder mixed together.  I am sure it would bring some problems when used to make salad dressings or mayonnaise, however, so it wouldn't serve well for all-purpose cooking in the kitchen.


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## maryloucb (Mar 4, 2021)

I'm not an experienced soap maker, but as a philosophical answer I'd have to say lard for both. My goal as a human is to source as much as I can locally, which definitely does not include coconut, palm, olive or any other tropical or mediterranean oil. There are, however, lots of cows in Colorado, with a very conscientious family locally that raises their animals sustainably and ethically.


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## Peachy Clean Soap (Mar 4, 2021)

FragranceGuy said:


> Hey soap heads!
> 
> 1.) If you could only use one oil to make soap for personal use (100% bars) for the rest of your life, what oil would you choose and why?
> 
> 2.) If you could only choose one oil to make soap AND it was the only oil you could use for cooking would your answer change?


What a great Q... Personally the jury is still out on this one!.  I'm tittering on three. Lard' Coconut' Castor:


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## ResolvableOwl (Mar 4, 2021)

earlene said:


> To answer *ResolvableOwl*, I actually like 100% Cocoa Butter soap, but it's pretty expensive for a single oil soap, so I wouldn't choose it as my only oil. I've never cooked with it myself, but I have tasted some really good raw vegan candy make with it & cocoa powder mixed together. I am sure it would bring some problems when used to make salad dressings or mayonnaise, however, so it wouldn't serve well for all-purpose cooking in the kitchen.


Yeah, it's a difficult question, so nobody expects easy answers (and we also note that it wasn't about _economical viability_, otherwise you could easily ruin yourself with artisanal EVOO imported by oneself from a small Greek postcard-motif island too, for sure!).

I also once made a 100% cocoa butter soap (as an ingredient for composite rebatch); it was super brittle and crumbled within the mould. I definitely would not choose it as the one-soaping-oil-forever, but it has its uses. On the other hand, if I had to give up either chocolate or cooking … ??? I _love_ cooking, but I can more easily imagine browning garlic in cocoa butter, than desperately trying to solidify a slurry of cocoa powder and olive oil.
Currently my first batch of cupuaçu soap is in the making, it might be a good compromise, R.I.P. economy…


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## AliOop (Mar 4, 2021)

@ResolvableOwl I never thought to try cooking with cocoa butter... will add that to the list now.  

@FragranceGuy it sounds like you have yet tried scrambled eggs (and all other things) cooked in bacon grease. Everything is better with bacon!


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## Quanta (Mar 5, 2021)

Coconut oil. I know a lot of people don't like the 20% superfat coconut oil soap, but I do. I also would use coconut oil if it was the only oil I could cook with, as it is more versatile than olive oil since it doesn't taste as strong. I like olive oil in my salad dressing, but I don't like it in desserts. I could use coconut oil in salad dressing in a pinch, and still use it in desserts. Plus, it's super cheap.


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## Iluminameluna (Apr 20, 2021)

1. Lard
2. Lard
Like @Zany_in_CO said, think how Grandma dealt with her cooking and lack of choices in the kitchen.
My 2 biological grandmothers were Salvadoran and I know for a fact that, at least my city Grandma, her favorite soap was made with lard and wood ash. They were sold at the local market for 3 for 5¢, back in 1967/68.


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## Iluminameluna (Apr 20, 2021)

Tigger2 said:


> So many Lard fans!!   Which one stinks, Lard or Tallow?  One smells like bacon.  Gross, so gross.  I don't get the attraction when there are so many cool oils out there.  What does lard bring to the soap?
> My one and only oil would be coconut oil!4


Depending on how the lard was rendered, and how discerning your nose is, or whoever is going to use your soaps, there's a good chance it's not going to smell like bacon. 
Firstly because bacon is a particular meat product, think Italian sausage, versus breakfast sausage. You wouldn't confuse the two if you were cooking them. Nor would you confuse Parma ham with A Country ham that's common in the Southern U. S. during the last days of the Summer, early Fall. As a last example, I make my split pea soup with smoked ham hocks, not cured because I prefer the flavor profile of the smoked ones. Just my preference. 
So, does lard smell like bacon? Not to me. There's a faint smell of fried pork meat, but by the time I'm done with my additives, and I usually don't use fragrances or essential oils in my soaps, even that faint smell is gone. And my friends who ask for my soaps don't know there's mostly lard in them, except for the few who've asked.
Those bars are usually the whitest of my soaps, they last at least a month each per person, and if I do add an essential oil, it holds the scent much better than the soaps I make with a higher olive oil content.
And the lard heavy soaps are the ones I use for making my Soleseif bars. Gorgeous creamy lather, even though they take the longest to cure, at 3 months, before I let them get used.


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## lsg (Apr 20, 2021)

1.  Lard

2.  Rice Bran Oil


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## BubblingBrooke (Apr 21, 2021)

I'm another fan of lard or tallow - honestly either would be fine! I render and filter it myself and my end product is odorless and white as fresh snow


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## Aromasuzie (Apr 22, 2021)

Wow, you guys are making me want to try lard, it's so expensive in NZ!  I worked it out to be $16 a kilo.  You guys also seem to be a big fan of shortening at times, I don't even know where I would look to find it in the supermarket.  New Zealand is a HUGE butter nation and at one stage it was illegal to bring margarine into the country   

Since I'm not a big fan on the taste of oils, I'd have to choose Rice Bran Oil as its cheap and tasteless.


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## Quanta (Apr 22, 2021)

Aromasuzie said:


> You guys also seem to be a big fan of shortening at times, I don't even know where I would look to find it in the supermarket.



Same aisle as cooking oils, near the flour and sugar, at least around here.


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## SoapWitch (Apr 22, 2021)

Using lard in soap making has a long history. I find this utilization fascinating as it was largely based on using waste, although we (and I still do) cooked with lard regularly. Nothing was wasted on personal homesteads and farms. The other two ingredients that have been used largely since the 1700-1800's when soap began to be industrialized was coconut oil and palm oil, as both were considered less than superior oils. Shortening/margarine began during WWII as there were shortages for everything. They used it as a substitutes for the real things and then just kept it. I'm sharing off the top of my head, but have read many books, striving to find the history of soap making. There was a man who was known for clarifying palm oil... I found this interesting, as it was a milestone for the soap makers.


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## ImpKit (Apr 22, 2021)

I'm now tempted to try making a 100% shea butter bar in one of my single cavity molds just to try it. Brambleberry did it and it's a low lather product... but it isn't supposed to be slimy like castile. The SMF calculator suggests that for a single oil, it isn't TERRIBLY unbalanced, with 4 of the six categories being solidly in the green, with only bubbly & cleansing being red (at 0). And since bubbly fluffy lather isn't what I want / need from a bar, and the cleanse is literally no worse than 100% OO castile and that works as soap...

As for cooking... I don't that often. I skip this inquiry.


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## Babyshoes (Apr 22, 2021)

ImpKit said:


> I'm now tempted to try making a 100% shea butter bar in one of my single cavity molds just to try it. Brambleberry did it and it's a low lather product... but it isn't supposed to be slimy like castile. The SMF calculator suggests that for a single oil, it isn't TERRIBLY unbalanced, with 4 of the six categories being solidly in the green, with only bubbly & cleansing being red (at 0). And since bubbly fluffy lather isn't what I want / need from a bar, and the cleanse is literally no worse than 100% OO castile and that works as soap...
> 
> As for cooking... I don't that often. I skip this inquiry.



Interesting experiment, please start a thread to let us know how it comes out if you do try it. 

Maybe make a slightly larger batch than a single bar, so you can see how it performs with a longer than average cure time. In my very limited experience and from what I've read, it seems to me that single oil soaps often benefit from longer cures. If you had 4 bars, you could try them at 1, 2, 6 and 12 months, for example.


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## ImpKit (Apr 22, 2021)

Babyshoes said:


> Interesting experiment, please start a thread to let us know how it comes out if you do try it.
> 
> Maybe make a slightly larger batch than a single bar, so you can see how it performs with a longer than average cure time. In my very limited experience and from what I've read, it seems to me that single oil soaps often benefit from longer cures. If you had 4 bars, you could try them at 1, 2, 6 and 12 months, for example.



I do have that Brambleberry 4 cavity hex mold... >_> I like the hex shape... And it would be less risky to do 4 soaps than one soaps; less margin for grievous error. I wouldn't need to fill the molds us fully. Hmm. I'm tempted...

ETA: And I WILL have free time this Saturday morning. And I do have the shea. And the lye. And the water. And some peppermint EO because I love peppermint... lol


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## Quanta (Apr 22, 2021)

ImpKit said:


> I'm now tempted to try making a 100% shea butter bar in one of my single cavity molds just to try it. Brambleberry did it and it's a low lather product... but it isn't supposed to be slimy like castile. The SMF calculator suggests that for a single oil, it isn't TERRIBLY unbalanced, with 4 of the six categories being solidly in the green, with only bubbly & cleansing being red (at 0). And since bubbly fluffy lather isn't what I want / need from a bar, and the cleanse is literally no worse than 100% OO castile and that works as soap...
> 
> As for cooking... I don't that often. I skip this inquiry.


You might find this interesting.





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## Tara_H (Apr 22, 2021)

ImpKit said:


> I do have that Brambleberry 4 cavity hex mold... >_> I like the hex shape... And it would be less risky to do 4 soaps than one soaps; less margin for grievous error. I wouldn't need to fill the molds us fully. Hmm. I'm tempted...
> 
> ETA: And I WILL have free time this Saturday morning. And I do have the shea. And the lye. And the water. And some peppermint EO because I love peppermint... lol


So basically no excuse   We'll be awaiting your report!


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