Has anyone ever used Nutiva palm shortening in their soap?

[SoapAddict415]

Hi everyone,
I got a good deal on Amazon on Nutiva brand organic palm shortening. It's a blend of palm & red palm oils, it's organic, non GMO certified and fair trade certified. I failed to notice that it contains coconut oil. I contacted the company but they're refusing to tell me the percentage of CO because it's a "proprietary blend". I'd rather use it in a soap than pay the return shipping costs. Has anyone used it before or have a suggestion as to how I can use it in soap?

 

[Obsidian]

Since its a blend, I wouldn't use it unless you know the percentage of each oil.

 

[BattleGnome]

At best you could check the sap values of the individual oils. Use the lower sap value and expect an iffy SF in the final soap. The next option would be to use it as the SF oil in HP where sap value is almost irrelevant.

 

[SoapAddict415]

Would the palm oil still help create a harder bar if I use it as the SF in HP?

 

[BattleGnome]

I have no idea but I'd guess not. I don't HP, so this is all guess work on my part.

To my understanding adding a SF after the cook in HO is for the luxury oils to remain luxury oils. With that in mind, my guess is that the palm would give all the benefits of slathering the base oil on your skin. I'm not too familiar with palm and don't know the benefits of using palm oil by itself. The coconut percentage might add something nice though

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

To work out the blend, get the sat/unsat fat amounts for each oil. Look at the ratio in the tub and, by trial and error, work out how much of each oil it is.

It's harder with 3, unless the palm and red palm actually have the same ratio of fat types.

 

[DeeAnna]

If I remember right, palm is red palm that's been bleached. I would think they would have about the same sap value.

The saturated and unsaturated %'s aren't going to be much help in figuring out the sap value -- according to my notes, palm and CO both are about 75% saturated, give or take a bit. You'd want to know the % of the individual saturated fatty acids to come up with a helpful estimate of the sap value.

Palm melts about 95 F and coconut melts about 75 F. You could estimate the melt temp of the shortening. If it's halfway between 95 and 75, then I'd guess the shortening is about 50:50 mix of the two. If it melts closer to 95, then more palm.

It bothers me to see the hype about this shortening being a "superfood." That's as meaningful a label as "natural." :neutral:

 

[kchaystack]

I'd just use it as palm, and lower my sf by 2%.

ETA: I would also keep my coconut oil lower than my usual - probably no more than 15%

 

[cmzaha]

I'd just use it as palm, and lower my sf by 2%.

ETA: I would also keep my coconut oil lower than my usual - probably no more than 15%

I do the same as above. Except I would add in co at 10% or not even add in more co. I do recommend making a very small test batch.

 

[SoapAddict415]

I'm

To work out the blend, get the sat/unsat fat amounts for each oil. Look at the ratio in the tub and, by trial and error, work out how much of each oil it is.

It's harder with 3, unless the palm and red palm actually have the same ratio of fat types.

Thanks but it doesn't list the ratios and the company won't tell me the percentage of CO. I think palm and red palm have the same SAP values. I'm going to experiment tonight using cmzaha's suggestion & a guess that the CO is at most 1/3 of the blend.

 

[earlene]

Please correct me if I am wrong, but I checked with a lye calculator and came up with this thought:

According to Soapee.com, Palm Oil is 50% saturated and 50% unsaturated oils

and 76degree Coconut oil is 79:21.

So if soapee is correct, then wouldn't it be easy to figure it out? Also this resource list palm fruit oil (red palm is in that category) as 52:48

So then all you need is a formula to determine the percentage of each oil based on the label which says that the total saturated fat is 40%.

This might help: http://www.scientificpsychic.com/mind/oliveoil.html

ETA: I talked to my husband about this and he says it is impossible for a mix of oils with saturated fat of 79 and of 50 to be mixed together and the result to have a saturated fat percentage of 40% unless there was some sort of chemical reaction going on to change saturated fats in the mix to become unsaturated.

Also I tried to put it into Soapee with those two and could not get a saturated fat value below 50% no matter how much I manipulated the percent of CO in the mix. So I think my husband must be right. He's pretty good at some stuff like this. I had to try really hard to make it work before I could see that it doesn't.

So this was probably totally unhelpful.

 

[Britannic]

Another option is to use titration to determine the actual SAP value, here's a thread to check out.

 

[DanielCoffey]

Earlene - I wonder if there is water added to the fats but not put on the label? That would lower the % of saturated fats per 14g "serving".

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

Those % are the % of daily allowance, not the serving itself.

A 14g serving contains 14g fat, of which 8g is saturated.

Based on that, it's more Palm than coconut, when working from the soapee figures from earlene.

 

[SoapAddict415]

I found out last night that it has a lot more palm than my estimated 2/3. My batter went from emulsification to thick trace in literally seconds. Adding sea salt & sodium lactate to ensure a hard bar probably didn't help my cause either. I couldn't even get the colors mixed in thoroughly because the batter was so thick but I think it still turned out nice. I will definitely be lowering the amount of palm in this recipe & eliminating either the sea salt or sodium lactate.

 

[cmzaha]

I found out last night that it has a lot more palm than my estimated 2/3. My batter went from emulsification to thick trace in literally seconds. Adding sea salt & sodium lactate to ensure a hard bar probably didn't help my cause either. I couldn't even get the colors mixed in thoroughly because the batter was so thick but I think it still turned out nice. I will definitely be lowering the amount of palm in this recipe & eliminating either the sea salt or sodium lactate.

I they look very nice. If no zap you should be good to go

 

[Sarah Apodaca]

I found out last night that it has a lot more palm than my estimated 2/3. My batter went from emulsification to thick trace in literally seconds. Adding sea salt & sodium lactate to ensure a hard bar probably didn't help my cause either. I couldn't even get the colors mixed in thoroughly because the batter was so thick but I think it still turned out nice. I will definitely be lowering the amount of palm in this recipe & eliminating either the sea salt or sodium lactate.

View attachment 25469

Hello! Did you ever figure out a percentage rate to use this at? I am wanting to make just a small 2 pound batch and am low on coconut oil and thought I would try this out since I have some on hand. On soapcalc.net there is an option for "Crisco new with red palm" and I almost want to select it when calculating my recipe. However, Crisco is not coconut oil blend so I am stumped. Any advice or input would be greatly appreciated! I am super new to soaping so I still have years or learning and research ahead of me haha.