BEST vegan and Palm free CP soap recipe

[Lauren27]

Hi everyone! I recently started up CP soap making, I made three batches, two of which did not come out good. The one batch that did come ok without being too slimy or too itchy, I used the following recipe:

12 ounces Coconut Oil
10 ounces Rice Bran Oil
6 ounces Avocado Oil
6 ounces Shea Butter
2 ounces Castor Oil
4.9 ounces Sodium Hydroxide
5 ounces Distilled Water
5 ounces Coconut Milk

The only concerm I had was that the bar doesn't seem to last through many washes and the Shea butter has an overpowering scent.

What are the best vegan and Palm free soap recipes that you have encountered or use? I have a request for soap for a bridal shower, and I want to make these great! Also looking for advice on natural colorants as well.

 

[Seawolfe]

I was really pleased with this one. I colored it with alkanet, scented with lavender EO. Superfat was 7% and I added a bit of bentonite clay. Made a nice hard bar.

# √ Oil/Fat %
1 Castor *Oil 5.000
2 Beeswax 2.000
3 Cocoa *Butter 10.000
4 Coconut *Oil, *76 *deg 20.000
5 Olive *Oil 35.000
6 Almond *Oil, *sweet 28.000

Oops just realized the beeswax isn't vegan, perhaps sub in some shea, and lessen the almond or olive.

 

[Obsidian]

You could use candelilla wax, its made from a plant. Its very hard and brittle so you only need half the amount if replacing beeswax.

 

[kumudini]

First of all, congratulations on getting started. It might take sometime to get things right. Practice makes perfect. CP soaps need min 4-6 weeks of cure time during which a lot of the water evaporates and soap becomes hard yet mild. I wonder if you allowed your soaps full cure. If not, that would explain it not lasting long enough.
Also, your recipe is very high in coconut oil, it makes a harder bar but is quite drying. My vegan soap recipe includes olive oil, coconut oil, Palm oil and castor oil at 60,15,15 and 5%. SF around 7 with shea butter. I really like that recipe. I add sugar to the lye water( added before lye and completely dissolved). It adds to bubbles.
Many here like to use lard/ tallow.
I would be hesitant to share soaps to others until Im sure that my soaps are going to be nice and most importantly safe.
Best wishes.
Aha, I think I need to go sleep and try again tomorrow

 

[kumudini]

About the shea scent, some like it, some don't. If you don't like it, it's better to use refined shea butter when making unscented bars. I agree with the clay addition. I like clays and use them in most of my soaps.

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

If you're having issues at this stage, I would politely decline the request to make soaps for a bridal shower - those need to be something spot on and I think you'd agree that results have been a little inconsistent.

For beginner batches, smaller is better - between 500 to 1000 grams is good. That way when (or if) something goes wrong it is not a lot of wasted ingredients.

 

[cmzaha]

There are some nice recipes at Miller Soap. One of my favorites is the Canolive ll recipe. http://millersoap.com/soapallveg.html#CanoliveII. You will also find a lot of info and troubleshooting soap over there. I do not recommend using the listed water and lye without running it through soap calc. Although I can say I have never found an error with the recipes there, but it is still best to get comfortable with soap calc. A few years ago I spent a lot of time checking the recipes on her site manually and through soap calc. Just a little note "hardness" in soap calc does not mean a soap will last a long time. A high coconut oil soap will make a hard bar, but is highly soluble and will not last a long time. A canolive soap will last a month or two is kept on a wood soap deck. Heidi at The Faely Fairy House Company, who makes my soap decks, will make nice pine soap decks for $1.25 each. Just email her and mention Carolyn recommended her. Pine soap decks do not discolor like some woods and practically last forever. I have one I have used for 15 years

 

[new12soap]

I agree that your soap needs to cure for at least 6 weeks, otherwise it will not last very long. It also gets milder with time.

I also agree that being relatively new at soapmaking, you probably should not be making soap for a bridal shower.

A 2lb or so batch size is fine. Any smaller is risking measurement errors, and larger is a waste of ingredients if it doesn't turn out.

Try something like this:

60% Olive oil
25% Coconut oil
10% Shea butter
5% Castor oil

5% superfat

If you want to bump up the shea butter to 15% you can take the olive down to 55%. I won't give you lye or liquid amounts because you should ALWAYS run any recipe through a lye calculator.

HTH

 

[Lauren27]

Thanks

THANKS everyone for the replies. I actually did wait 6 weeks to cure.

Opinions and thoughts on this recipe below!!!

Olive oil 57% (9.12 oz)
Coconut Oil- 25% (4.00 oz)
Cocoa Butter 12% (1.92oz)
Castor Oil 6% (.96oz)
1-3% Sodium Lactate

8% superfat

 

[kumudini]

THANKS everyone for the replies. I actually did wait 6 weeks to cure.

Opinions and thoughts on this recipe below!!!

Olive oil 57% (9.12 oz)
Coconut Oil- 25% (4.00 oz)
Cocoa Butter 12% (1.92oz)
Castor Oil 6% (.96oz)
1-3% Sodium Lactate

8% superfat

I like to round up to whole ounces and your numbers are so close to being whole, I would suggest
olive oil 9 oz
coconut 4
cocoa butter 2
castor 1
SL 1-3%

it looks fine either way if you are making it for yourself as the high coconut percentage didn't seem to bother you.

 

[maya]

I really like a 100% olive oil soap with a good long cure.

 

[shunt2011]

THANKS everyone for the replies. I actually did wait 6 weeks to cure.

Opinions and thoughts on this recipe below!!!

Olive oil 57% (9.12 oz)
Coconut Oil- 25% (4.00 oz)
Cocoa Butter 12% (1.92oz)
Castor Oil 6% (.96oz)
1-3% Sodium Lactate

8% superfat

I think your recipe looks great. It's still fairly high in OO so give it a good 6-8 week cure. As a side note, I prefer to measure in grams as it's even more accurate than ounces.

 

[kumudini]

I think your recipe looks great. It's still fairly high in OO so give it a good 6-8 week cure. As a side note, I prefer to measure in grams as it's even more accurate than ounces.

I always measure in grams too, but since I plug in ounces instead of percentages into soap calc, I have whole ounces in my recipes.

 

[kchaystack]

My palm free vegan recipe is:

Avocado oil- 25%
Castor oil - 5%
Coconut oil 76 - 15%
Olive oil - 45%
Shea Butter - 10%

Sodium lactate - 3% of total oil weight
Kaolin clay - 1 TBSP PPO

 

[kumudini]

Think I should try a palm free recipe. I'm allergic to avocado. My tummy burns up really bad and the pain lasts a long time too. So Iam kind of vary of trying the oil in soaps. Anyone with similar experience who could use the oil without issue?

 

[kchaystack]

Think I should try a palm free recipe. I'm allergic to avocado. My tummy burns up really bad and the pain lasts a long time too. So Iam kind of vary of trying the oil in soaps. Anyone with similar experience who could use the oil without issue?

you could swap out the avocado to sweet almond oil.

 

[kumudini]

I do use sweet almond oil in my soaps, thank you. I was wondering if I could use the avocado oil in my soaps since it seems like something many people like and feel it makes a difference in their soaps. Right now im scared to even work with it if not use on my skin.

 

[kchaystack]

I do use sweet almond oil in my soaps, thank you. I was wondering if I could use the avocado oil in my soaps since it seems like something many people like and feel it makes a difference in their soaps. Right now im scared to even work with it if not use on my skin.

If you have an allergy to it, I would not use it. It is possible you would be ok using it externally, but why chance it? You might feel the need to wash your mouth out some day!

 

[kumudini]

I guess no one else has any experience with avocado allergy either first hand or otherwise. I don't breakout in hives nor airways close shut. I guess I am being dramatic but it's only bad acid burn, really bad. I know I am never going to eat even a tiny bit. But I was wondering if the acid burn is going to return even if I touch it. Anyways, until and unless someone says a definitive yay or nay, im just going to avoid it like plague.
Thank you again.

 

[Lauren27]

My palm free vegan recipe is:

Avocado oil- 25%
Castor oil - 5%
Coconut oil 76 - 15%
Olive oil - 45%
Shea Butter - 10%

Sodium lactate - 3% of total oil weight
Kaolin clay - 1 TBSP PPO

Thank you!!!!! How does it come out? Does it last longer with washes? I have had people tell me to up the OO and decrease the CO, but I am concerned that increasing the OO will create a slimy bar.