Replacing Palm Oil

[Zany_in_CO]

I personally am going to experiment with a straight sub between palm oil and avocado oil, probably going a little higher on some hardening oil to compensate. And adding something to harden.

IMO and IME, shea butter is an excellent sub for palm oil. Avocado oil is high in unsaponifiables and should be used at no more than 15% of your liquid oils in your formula. It's especially nice for making avocado face soap.

BASIC TRINITY OF OILS

 

[ResolvableOwl]

I don't follow the logic why to limit avocado due to unsaponifiables, but not shea, that has a ton of unsaponifiables too.

ETA: Found this article with many numbers and crazy correlations of the type “the harder (higher stearic) the shea butter, the more unsaponifiables it contains”.

 

[ScentimentallyYours]

Personally, I plan to experiment next week with a no palm vegetarian soap for my sister using shea and cocoa butter. I would like to find a profile in FA similar to lard or tallow. If anyone has any links to great no palm vegetarian recipes for my research, please chime in!

 

[AliOop]

Personally, I plan to experiment next week with a no palm vegetarian soap for my sister using shea and cocoa butter. I would like to find a profile in FA similar to lard or tallow. If anyone has any links to great no palm vegetarian recipes for my research, please chime in!

Do a search in the soy wax thread - I think @KiwiMoose has come up with and shared a pretty good recipe that meets your criteria.

 

[Ladka]

Personally, I plan to experiment next week with a no palm vegetarian soap for my sister using shea and cocoa butter. I would like to find a profile in FA similar to lard or tallow. If anyone has any links to great no palm vegetarian recipes for my research, please chime in!

@Szaza has made experiments in this area, presenting the results on the forum. You may search for information in her threads.

 

[ResolvableOwl]

@ScentimentallyYours I have heard that myrtle wax is an excellent source of palmitic acid

 

[KiwiMoose]

I added both avocado oil and RBO to my standard recipe after about a year of tweaking. They both bring additional palmitic.
I've always made palm-free, vegan soap and my initial recipes used cocoa/shea butters to bring hardness.
Over time I've tweaked my recipe mainly due to the costs of some oils/fats.
I settled on soy wax and shea for my hard oils, CO of course, and then OO, RBO, Avocado and castor. RBO and avocado are the new kids on the block where initially I used more OO and apricot kernel oil. As stated both these newer ingredients contain more palmitic. More recently ( due to OO shortages and price hikes during the pandemic) I have increased my RBO to up to 40% of the recipe.
My recipe is high in stearic which I don't have a problem with.

 

[Zany_in_CO]

I don't follow the logic why to limit avocado due to unsaponifiables, but not shea, that has a ton of unsaponifiables too.

Haha. There is no logic to it. Just based on experience and in my opinion (IME & IMO).

 

[ResolvableOwl]

My recipe is high in stearic which I don't have a problem with.

I haven't tried the soaps in person, but I have epigonised her recipe, and can confirm that it is indeed not a problem. The lather is creamy yet ample, and it leaves the skin with a pleasant sensation of mild cleanliness. I guess that forced gel & the high water content really help to avoid the stearic-notorious sensation (scratchy bricks with hardly any lather). Besides that, RBO and soy wax really are a dream team!

 

[SideDoorSoaps]

I've yet to formulate a no palm recipe that passes my husband's scrutiny but he's a lather lover. I buy other's palm free to compare and the ones I like have a lot of shea. If their labeling is correct, I assume it it is the most prominent base oil. He doesn't like the shea bars because he thinks they are draggy (he's a hairy guy and he wants the soap to rinse off well lol)

I do have a recipe that has almond and cocoa butter at a higher amount with just a little palm oil and that one is more tolerable for him than no palm at all. I've been tweaking a lower olive oil amount for the last six months to counter the rising cost and so far, he hasn't really noticed the change in that bar so I may throw in some shea to test again.

 

[Barefoot Farm Girl]

I've yet to formulate a no palm recipe that passes my husband's scrutiny but he's a lather lover. I buy other's palm free to compare and the ones I like have a lot of shea. If their labeling is correct, I assume it it is the most prominent base oil. He doesn't like the shea bars because he thinks they are draggy (he's a hairy guy and he wants the soap to rinse off well lol)

I do have a recipe that has almond and cocoa butter at a higher amount with just a little palm oil and that one is more tolerable for him than no palm at all. I've been tweaking a lower olive oil amount for the last six months to counter the rising cost and so far, he hasn't really noticed the change in that bar so I may throw in some shea to test again.

Have you tried lard to replace palm and subbing part of the olive oil with Rice Bran oil? Sugar helps with the bubbles also

 

[SideDoorSoaps]

Have you tried lard to replace palm and subbing part of the olive oil with Rice Bran oil? Sugar helps with the bubbles also

I just was posting in another thread about olive oil and replacing with RBO. And yes, I'm in testing phase with it. The lather for my husband is more about how dense they are versus how big bubbly they are. I can't really explain it. He just knows how it feels different. Also, he is the one who created the recipes from the beginning and he is well aware of all the feels of ingredients. I did sugar a couple times and he said the bubbles were fragile. So far, he's not made notice of the olive oil reduction but I went from 40% oo to 30% oo / 10% rbo. I may have to get more drastic.