Hi all. I'm planning to make facial soap for oily skin, using activated charcoal. However, every recipe I've seen calls for palm oil. I stopped using palm oil a long time ago and would like to know what other oil(s) I can use to replace palm. Thanks in advance.
Replacing palm oil for recipe
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MorpheusPA
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Note: You'll need to recalculate your recipe via SoapCalc or whatever lye calculator you use.
If you're not adverse to animal oils, both lard and tallow are close to palm in terms of what they bring to the bar (there are differences, of course).
If you don't want to do that, you might be OK with sustainable Round Table palm instead of a random palm oil. Personally, I'm not because I'm a cynic and the labor practices are still bad.
The last option is to rebalance the oils to compensate for the lack of palm. Instead of, say, 50% palm oil, you might raise the coconut by 5-10% and the olive oil by 40-45%.
It would depend on your recipe, and might very well require a longer cure and end with different characteristics (the above change would be more highly cleansing, take longer to cure, and be a bit stickier than the original recipe).
If you're not adverse to animal oils, both lard and tallow are close to palm in terms of what they bring to the bar (there are differences, of course).
If you don't want to do that, you might be OK with sustainable Round Table palm instead of a random palm oil. Personally, I'm not because I'm a cynic and the labor practices are still bad.
The last option is to rebalance the oils to compensate for the lack of palm. Instead of, say, 50% palm oil, you might raise the coconut by 5-10% and the olive oil by 40-45%.
It would depend on your recipe, and might very well require a longer cure and end with different characteristics (the above change would be more highly cleansing, take longer to cure, and be a bit stickier than the original recipe).
I agree with Morpheus. I personally use lard. As long as you're not opposed to using lard it makes a really awesome soap. I stopped using Palm a couple years ago for the most part.
Just recalculate your recipe and you should be good to go. Another great facial/body soap recipe that doesn't use either is Jenny/Lindy's Shampoo recipe here on the site. It's a really nice gentle soap which can be tweaked to your personal preferences.
Just recalculate your recipe and you should be good to go. Another great facial/body soap recipe that doesn't use either is Jenny/Lindy's Shampoo recipe here on the site. It's a really nice gentle soap which can be tweaked to your personal preferences.
I second Shari's suggestion of Jenny/Lindy's shampoo bar formula as a facial soap.^^^ It doesn't contain any palm and it makes a lovely, gentle soap.
In regards to replacing palm, I know of some folks that use combinations of shea butter and coco butter to get a fairly workable facsimile.
I was just playing around on SoapCalc to see what combinations of oils/fats would give me a fatty acid profile similar to that of palm, and this is the best that I have come up with so far:
Shea butter 45.5%
Cocoa butter 43%
Sunflower oil 10%
Coconut oil 1.5%
Although the individual percentages of stearic and palmitic in the facsimile's fatty acid profile are very different from those in palm's profile, the combined total of the two in each end up being pretty much the same, which is good enough in my book.
IrishLass
In regards to replacing palm, I know of some folks that use combinations of shea butter and coco butter to get a fairly workable facsimile.
I was just playing around on SoapCalc to see what combinations of oils/fats would give me a fatty acid profile similar to that of palm, and this is the best that I have come up with so far:
Shea butter 45.5%
Cocoa butter 43%
Sunflower oil 10%
Coconut oil 1.5%
Although the individual percentages of stearic and palmitic in the facsimile's fatty acid profile are very different from those in palm's profile, the combined total of the two in each end up being pretty much the same, which is good enough in my book.
IrishLass
If you're against animal fats and want something that's less expensive than shea and cocoa butter, take a look at Soy Wax. If you blend it with olive oil and a little coconut, you can achieve a fatty acid profile that is similar to palm (or at least "close enough for government work"):
Olive oil, 58%
Soy wax, 40%
Coconut oil, 2%
Soy wax makes nice soap and it's all I've used for a hard fat for well over a year now. The first soy wax recipe I used was:
Olive oil, 50%
Coconut oil, 25%
Soy wax, 20%
Castor oil, 5%
I've since tweaked things quite a bit, but it's a nice starting point.
Olive oil, 58%
Soy wax, 40%
Coconut oil, 2%
Soy wax makes nice soap and it's all I've used for a hard fat for well over a year now. The first soy wax recipe I used was:
Olive oil, 50%
Coconut oil, 25%
Soy wax, 20%
Castor oil, 5%
I've since tweaked things quite a bit, but it's a nice starting point.
