slow-moving, vegan, and palm-free?

[luluzapcat]

Sounds like a personal ad, but I'm looking for a soap recipe....does anyone have one they don't mind sharing? I usually prioritize other qualities I can balance and experiment with using soap calculators, but I'm not sure where to start for getting into swirls.

Apologies if this has been well-covered in other threads; I've searched the message boards some but not found the right terms to get what I need. Thanks for any pointers.

 

[AliOop]

You might check out "From Grace to You" on YouTube. She shares at least one vegan, palm-free recipe that is slow-moving for her very artistic designs. I believe it's one of her earlier videos on basic soap-making techniques, although she often shares recipes or links back to where she shared them previously.

 

[KiwiMoose]

Use an OO heavy recipe (not pomace).
My recipe is vegan and I do some good swirls but that's with tons of practice given the recipe. My best recommendation is to find an FO that slows trace. The biggest hurdle to me doing intricate swirls is how the FO performs. I have two that I use frequently that allow me extra swirl time.

 

[luluzapcat]

From Grace to You gave me a starting point...thanks @AliOop!
and thanks @KiwiMoose --fragrance search begins!

 

[LynetteO]

From Grace to You gave me a starting point...thanks @AliOop!
and thanks @KiwiMoose --fragrance search begins!

Found this in “From Grace to You” eBook. Supposed to be slow moving. Lots of CO tho. Too high for my skin anyway.

 

[AliOop]

Wow, I for sure wouldn't find that slow-moving with all that coconut oil and shea butter. I thought she had some recipes with more soft oils, but perhaps I'm thinking of someone else.

 

[LynetteO]

Wow, I for sure wouldn't find that slow-moving with all that coconut oil and shea butter. I thought she had some recipes with more soft oils, but perhaps I'm thinking of someone else.

I felt the same when looking at it ingredients. When reading that particular pdf she mentions that her low water is what helps to make batter move slower. Even though that sounds counterintuitive, she talks about the chemistry behind that thought. She certainly had quite a bit of free pdf material to read.

 

[luluzapcat]

I felt the same when looking at it ingredients. When reading that particular pdf she mentions that her low water is what helps to make batter move slower. Even though that sounds counterintuitive, she talks about the chemistry behind that thought. She certainly had quite a bit of free pdf material to read.

This is all super interesting--so hard oils would typically make things move faster, I gather, but low water slows it down...I'm going to have to dig in and do some reading and research. Which I'm also game for if no magic bullet recipe materializes...thanks folks!

 

[AliOop]

Well, except that lard is a very slow-moving hard fat. Of course, it's not one that you would use for your vegan recipe.

 

[Mobjack Bay]

Check out the youtube videos by Holly of Kapia Mera soap. I‘m fairly certain that she gives a vegan recipe in the one where she makes a secret feather swirl in a soap made with rose clay.

 

[KiwiMoose]

This is all super interesting--so hard oils would typically make things move faster, I gather, but low water slows it down...I'm going to have to dig in and do some reading and research. Which I'm also game for if no magic bullet recipe materializes...thanks folks!

I guess that makes sense when you think that high water tends to make soap overheat ( think gelling/glycerin rivers) and hot soap tends to trace quicker. But it does sound counter-intuitive to me even though the science makes sense.
Have you thought of using dual-lye? My soap with 5% KoH traces much slower than my usual 100% NaOH.
How about just using 80% OO/15% CO and 5% castor? That would be fairly slow? Slow and slimy like a snail.

 

[AliOop]

Well, maybe not slimy if she did ZNSC.

 

[LynetteO]

Check out the youtube videos by Holly of Kapia Mera soap. I‘m fairly certain that she gives a vegan recipe in the one where she makes a secret feather swirl in a soap made with rose clay.

From said video:

 

[earlene]

A simple slow moving recipe I used for many swirls was 100% Olive Oil soap. No CO, no Castor. Just plain old Castile soap (not using pomace OO as it traces very fast), using the least expensive Olive Oil I could find at Sam's Club or Costco or other grocer.

As long as I did not do HP and kept my CP temperatures average room temp, I had plenty of time for intricate swirls with this soap. I started out using default settings in soapcalc, but later moved to less water to prevent the warping that occurs with high water recipes. (Soap bars would warp and bend during the cure.) They get rock hard after a long cure, but the long cure is a drawback if you want to use the soap earlier. However, when the goal is to practice and perfect intricate swirls, it's my go-to recipe, because I am in no rush to use up new soap when I have so much already.

Of course, some folks hate Castile soap, so if that's an issue, there are are other recipes that are slow moving and you are getting suggestions for some of them. I tried a few from an internet search when I was new (vegan, palm-free, yada yada) and Castile worked best for me. You can even do a low CO, low Castor with the rest being plain (not pomace) OO and still have slow moving. So 80-85% OO (OR a combination of OO & HO Safflower or HO Sunflower or HO Canola if you can find them) + 12-15% Coconut Oil, and 3-5% Castor (or 3% Castor). You could sub Avocado oil for some of the liquid oils, as well and it would still be slow moving (say around 30%). (By the way, HO=High Oleic.)

For me, I tend to use a low SF, and a mid to high range lye concentration, so around 1-3% SF and 33-35% Lye Concentration (sometimes higher, but I don't recommend high range for a beginner).

Always run any recipe through a lye calculator to ensure you get the correct amount of lye for a given recipe. I always use Lye Concentration, which is another way of saying Water to Lye Ratio. I don't use Water as % of oils, at least not since I was a beginner & it was the default setting for the lye calculators I used in the beginning. Now I use SoapmakingFriend calculator and can customize the settings to my own preferred defaults and that saves me a lot of time when it comes to designing a recipe. But if you prefer another calculator, that is fine, however I recommend avoiding the default setting of water as percent of oils setting and changing that to Water to Lye Ratio or to Lye Concentration.

 

[TheGecko]

Apologies if this has been well-covered in other threads; I've searched the message boards some but not found the right terms to get what I need. Thanks for any pointers.

"Palm Free Recipe" generally works both here and in Google.

From earlier this year you have This One and That One. Via Google there is The Nerdy Farm Wife, Lovely Greens, SoapQueen, Bottega Zero Waste, Lovin Soap, Soap Making Essentials and Natures Garden Candles to name a few. There are also YT videos from Tellervo, BrambleBerry, Sara's Soap and Tiggy Makes Soap, but there are more. All sharing palm-free recipes.

 

[luluzapcat]

Thank you everyone for all the ideas and detailed thoughts! Lots of avenues to pursue here. Several of you have reminded me that the very first soap I made, WAY back in the early 90s (followed by a few decades hiatus from soapmaking), was 100% olive oil and took FOREVER to trace. I don't love castile slime but...maybe worth the tradeoff.
Or maybe your generous suggestions will yield a recipe that fits the bill with a bit more to recommend it. I bought some bulk avocado oil yesterday so that OO, CO, avo, and castor might be today's venture...
Dual lye hadn't crossed my mind...will look into this!