Hi!

[AttackedByCoconutOil]

Hi! My name is Charlotte and I just joined this forum. I've never actually made soap before, although I've made shampoo, which is kind of fun. I never planned on making my own soap but I've been essentially forced into it because of a health condition called Mast Cell Activation Syndrome. In other words, the cells that cause allergic reactions are overactive.

Specifically, I react to all forms of coconut (which all by itself rules out most soap), olive oil (rules out pretty much everything else), all forms of sunflower, all forms of safflower, all forms of sesame, all forms of almonds, grapeseed oil, jojoba oil, palm oil, palm oil, avocado oil, flax oil (so far I react to every kind of oil I've tried), menthol, capsaicin, white vinegar, mint, buckwheat, soapnuts, and pecans, and anything made from milk. I'm also a vegetarian so lard and tallow gross me out. This eliminates every commercial soap and shampoo as far as I can tell.

I realize I'm probably not going to be able to make anything particularly good. My primary goal is to find a way to be more or less clean without triggering my condition. I realize this may be impossible, but even reducing the frequency would help. If I can avoid enough triggers for long enough, I may eventually be able to reintroduce some things. My hope is to make this into a fun challenge rather than just something that has been inflicted on me.

Anyway, my goal is to make this into a fun challenge rather than something that has been inflicted on me. I found this forum when I was searching for information on how to make coconut-free soap and it seemed like exactly what I needed!

 

[GemstonePony]

Welcome! And I'm so sorry your introduction to this hobby is under these conditions.
How do you react to rice bran oil? I think that was one of the few oils I'm not seeing on the list that made a decent single-oil soap, though it can be prone to rancidity.
If you happen to not be allergic to soy, soy wax (hydrogenated soybean oil) could help another oil lather better and last longer. The same with cocoa butter, mango seed butter, and Shea butter, though I'm trying to remember if Shea is related to anything on your list.
Canola oil only soap goes rancid in 6 months flat, but if you're not allergic then perhaps it could be balanced out by something else.
That's all I've got off the top of my head at the moment.

 

[AttackedByCoconutOil]

Thanks! Actually I have that and haven't tried it yet because I was having trouble getting the bottle open... I'll work on that.

Forgot about the soy oil. Can't do that one either! Shea is okay somehow. Mango seed butter isn't. Need to try cocoa butter. Forgot to mention I react to the canola, too... That's at least one thing, though!!

 

[GemstonePony]

Yay, Shea! Ok, I'm pretty sure Shea butter by itself makes soap that doesn't lather, so let us know how rice bran goes. If that works out, you've got your soft oils and hard oils.
Otherwise, there's also fractionated Shea oil, and if you don't react to that, a mix of Shea oil and Shea butter might make an ok soap.

 

[lsg]

You could try playing around with SoapCalc or the Soapmaking Friend lye calculators to come up with a formula with oils and butters that you can use.

 

[TheGecko]

So we have Hard Oils like Cocoa Butter, Kokum Butter and Shea Butter that are possibly available to you. For Soft Oils there is Rice Bran Oil, Babassu Oil, Castor Oil, Cherry Kernel Oil, Hazel Nut Oil, Macadamia Nut Oil.

 

[GemstonePony]

Babassu is related to palm, so I wasn't sure about recommending it. It's as cleansing as Coconut in a soap, so if that one works, you would probably be able to put together a very good bar of soap.

 

[AttackedByCoconutOil]

I reacted to the rice bran oil and macadamia nut oil! Do any of the hard butters work well? It seems like that might go better. I've never even heard of some of these so glad there are a few more possibilities!

I made some shampoo with soapwort and it kind of worked (putting it in a blender to get it to foam up more helped me get it where it needed to go, along with a brush). Not like real shampoo but better than I expected. I don't know that it would make a good soap, though, and with the virus, I need something that actually works. Anyway, I'll keep working on trying various oils and see if I can get anything other than the shea butter to use. Thanks everyone!