Palm oil confusion

Soapmaking Forum

Help Support Soapmaking Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
My last supplier was Natures Garden. It comes in different grades. I search for “415”. @KiwiMoose recently tried it and thought it made a lovely creamy lather. It has a lot of strearic so adjust quantity to ur desired hardness level. Let me know how u like it!

Do you know if C - 3 will work? My daughter have 5 lbs of the stuff.
 
I don’t think so. I just read on an online forum that the poster contacted the manufacturer who said it contains additives...which makes sense because its for container candles. U want 100% hydrogenated soybean oil. Its super cheap.
 
Do you know if C - 3 will work? My daughter have 5 lbs of the stuff.
@Obsidian - I think only some of them are suitable for soap (without additives). Some others are used specifically for candles and they have other additives that might not be skin friendly. I use it at 20%, but I’m far from an experienced soaper. I still use 6 other oils for the qualities they bring to the soap. You with your experience will find a way to use it that works well for you I’m sure. I think it gives a good hardness to the soap but provides a nice creamy ‘moisturising’ feel to the soap ( that’s with me using all the other oils I usually use too - coconut at a lower percentage than previously, olive, apricot kernel, castor and Shea.)
 
I'll look into the ingredients. I thought I saw on one site that it was additive free. DD said I can have the whole bag if I want.

Edit: the listing says all soy blend so idk, its a blend of different soy? BB did say its skin safe so I might as well give it a try.
 
Last edited:
Hi Terri,

Saw your cute pup. My family’s first dog was a samoyed.

I’m not a chemist but I dont think soy wax is a true wax. Its hydrogenated oil. No issues with my plumbing. I use it in high percentages. Feels fine on the skin.

Love the Samoyeds and thanks for the info, I had never heard of using it in soap :)
 
I'll look into the ingredients. I thought I saw on one site that it was additive free. DD said I can have the whole bag if I want.

Edit: the listing says all soy blend so idk, its a blend of different soy? BB did say its skin safe so I might as well give it a try.

I def contact the company first to confirm. I’d hate for u to be turned off SW cuz u had a bad experience with an inferior product.

BTW: Here is the posting I saw:

If you are saying, well C-3 is 100% soy wax.. Here is part of an email I got from Mary at Cargill over a year ago when I asked her if C-3 was mixed with any other oils.

"Our wax is made from soybean oil which is under the classification of vegetable oils. The product contains a certain amount of additives to help improve functionality but does not contain botanical oils. "

 
Just putting aside for a moment the environmental palm issues one of the things which I don't like about palm is its tendency to separate out leaving the solid part kind of crusty and the oily part separate which then required heating up and a good old mix together if you dont want to risk not having a homogenous palm oil, its can become tedious if you have a bulk amount in storage and the weather is cold. This is a reason for me to also not be palm friendly despite it making lovely soap.
 
IMHO all that hate for Palm Oil is just a business for someone. i.e. the ones that makes money with clicks and bad information, or something driven by bigger economical interests.
These plantation are made in developing countries, where they are deforesting and make intensive use of soil to make money, if it's not for palm it will be for something else, maybe Coca, Solar Plants, drillings, mines, other kind of intensive cultivations.
In these countries poor population just want a job to live, the choice is between having a lunch and a dinner or not. Like it happens in the actually "developed" countries. In northern Europe there are still Coal Mines open, and till a decade ago they works in crazy conditions, dying and this is not something environmental sustainable.
But this is needed to "grow" as we did.
(this is just an example, others are petrol drillings, wars for pertol, and many others less known)
So as I said absolutely IMHO the palm oil fight is just something that now "make news" at the expenses of many other bigger problems beside that.
As I said this is only my two cents opinion, and I really hope that there will be more environmental care. :(
 
We know that there are environmental issues in the use of palm or animal fats. Let's steer away from those murky waters and stick with what those fats and oils do for our soap recipes and a good alternative for those who do not wish to use palm or animal fats.
 
We know that there are environmental issues in the use of palm or animal fats. Let's steer away from those murky waters and stick with what those fats and oils do for our soap recipes and a good alternative for those who do not wish to use palm or animal fats.

I agree. However, I don’t think the OP was aware of the env issues which is why he created the thread. I think @Obsidian adequately addressed his question in the second post so it could have ended there. The third post turned it into a debate.

I specifically attempted to steer the conversation away from the debate by creating a thread to discuss vegan palm free soap. Unfortunately it was trolled by those that don’t soap without fat or palm. Hence, another debate insued.

Although this is currently a hot topic and may be played out for now (hopefully), I doubt it can be squashed indefinitely, especially with newbies joining all the time.

I wonder if a better way to address the matter is by creating a FAQ for topics that come up frequently. Palm could be a topic that the FAQ addresses. When newbies sign-up they can be auto-directed to the FAQ or when a poster brings up the repetitive topic, Admins could redirect the poster to the FAQ and perhaps close the thread if necessary. Just a thought.
 
Last edited:
Stearic acid is made from animal fat or palm oil.

Stearic acid can also be made from coconut oil and canola oil.
Rapeseed (canola) oil stearic acid:
https://www.thesoapkitchen.co.uk/palm-free-stearic-acid

Lush are currently working on palm and animal free stearic acid.
Here is the link. Sorry, it goes through the entire palm debate so only read the last few (3) paragraphs or avoid it if you aren’t interested in the debate.
https://uk.lush.com/ingredients/stearic-acid

Shea butter has a higher stearic acid content than cocoa butter.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top