Suggestions for oils

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I love the feel of soap made with lard, (mini bubbles, emolient, soft feeling) BUT my clients are mainly vegans: So: what oils would give that rich, emolient feel that lard gives with homemade soap? I'm experiementing, but so far, have not found the key to this. Suggestions?
 
Neem, believe it or not, is another fat that has a fatty acid composition similar to lard. The quality and amount of lather for soap made with neem are similar to soap made with lard. I can't say that's true in my experience with soap made with tallow or palm.

That said, neem has a distinctively strong odor that is objectionable to many people -- that's a real deal-breaker about using neem, which is why I seldom mention it.
 
I love the feel of soap made with lard, (mini bubbles, emolient, soft feeling) BUT my clients are mainly vegans: So: what oils would give that rich, emolient feel that lard gives with homemade soap? I'm experiementing, but so far, have not found the key to this. Suggestions?
I may have stumbled on a solution for you, @Joy Wolff. I don’t really like high palm oil recipes because they never quite lose a ghostly waxy/sticky quality, no matter how long the cure. Add to that the forest/habitat destruction for palm oil plantations are a global problem. So . . .

Not that long ago, I developed a vegan recipe for my relatives and Indian friends that I like so well it has mostly replaced my lard and tallow recipes. The key came with following the advice of @KiwiMoose to use soy wax. I also followed up on the advice of @AliOop to use sorbitol to increase large bubbles without significantly discoloring the soap. As long as I don’t add milk or bee products, the base recipe is completely vegan and sustainable. I never have to worry about giving this vegan soap to anyone.

Cathy’s Sustainable Vegan CP recipe. (Links to SoapmakingFriend)

Hard oils:
15% soy wax
18% coconut oil, 76 degrees
20% shea butter

Liquid oils:
40% high oleic sunflower oil
7% castor oil

Additives dissolved in water before combining with lye:
1.5% sodium lactate (liquid)
1.5% sodium citrate (powder)
1.5% sorbitol liquid (or .75% powder)

Add essential oils, fragrance oils, and colorants as desired.

If you want a very white bar of soap, you can use High Oleic safflower oil in place of the HO sunflower oil. I think some people may find the term sunflower, more appealing than safflower, which is my only reason for substituting one oil over the other. If you are not sure about an oil being high oleic, check the fatty acid profile on the label and look for 11% oleic. If it is only 9%, there may be a higher risk of developing DOS in the long term, so I avoid those oils.

Thanks to participating in the mini drop swirl challenge, (Thank you @Mobjack Bay!) I finally learned how to work with the soap batter when it is at emulsion. I find this vegan recipe to work very well for swirls, especially when blending by hand, as you will see in the current challenge threads.

Last month I donated soap to our church fundraiser. A woman who had received a bar of this vegan recipe soap from my donations to the food pantry volunteers, came over and told everyone how creamy and lotion-like the lather was, telling them they absolutely had to buy it. I didn’t have to say a thing and finally gave myself permission to stop worrying about the fact that I didn’t have many big sudsy bubbles in the lather.

For a visual, here is the first soap I learned to work with at emulsion for the mini drop swirl challenge. It was made with HO safflower oil. Notice how white it is with zero titanium dioxide. 😊
IMG_5452.jpeg
 
I may have stumbled on a solution for you, @Joy Wolff. I don’t really like high palm oil recipes because they never quite lose a ghostly waxy/sticky quality, no matter how long the cure. Add to that the forest/habitat destruction for palm oil plantations are a global problem. So . . .

Not that long ago, I developed a vegan recipe for my relatives and Indian friends that I like so well it has mostly replaced my lard and tallow recipes. The key came with following the advice of @KiwiMoose to use soy wax. I also followed up on the advice of @AliOop to use sorbitol to increase large bubbles without significantly discoloring the soap. As long as I don’t add milk or bee products, the base recipe is completely vegan and sustainable. I never have to worry about giving this vegan soap to anyone.

Cathy’s Sustainable Vegan CP recipe. (Links to SoapmakingFriend)

Hard oils:
15% soy wax
18% coconut oil, 76 degrees
20% shea butter

Liquid oils:
40% high oleic sunflower oil
7% castor oil

Additives dissolved in water before combining with lye:
1.5% sodium lactate (liquid)
1.5% sodium citrate (powder)
1.5% sorbitol liquid (or .75% powder)

Add essential oils, fragrance oils, and colorants as desired.

If you want a very white bar of soap, you can use High Oleic safflower oil in place of the HO sunflower oil. I think some people may find the term sunflower, more appealing than safflower, which is my only reason for substituting one oil over the other. If you are not sure about an oil being high oleic, check the fatty acid profile on the label and look for 11% oleic. If it is only 9%, there may be a higher risk of developing DOS in the long term, so I avoid those oils.

Thanks to participating in the mini drop swirl challenge, (Thank you @Mobjack Bay!) I finally learned how to work with the soap batter when it is at emulsion. I find this vegan recipe to work very well for swirls, especially when blending by hand, as you will see in the current challenge threads.

Last month I donated soap to our church fundraiser. A woman who had received a bar of this vegan recipe soap from my donations to the food pantry volunteers, came over and told everyone how creamy and lotion-like the lather was, telling them they absolutely had to buy it. I didn’t have to say a thing and finally gave myself permission to stop worrying about the fact that I didn’t have many big sudsy bubbles in the lather.

For a visual, here is the first soap I learned to work with at emulsion for the mini drop swirl challenge. It was made with HO safflower oil. Notice how white it is with zero titanium dioxide. 😊
View attachment 77681
I may have stumbled on a solution for you, @Joy Wolff. I don’t really like high palm oil recipes because they never quite lose a ghostly waxy/sticky quality, no matter how long the cure. Add to that the forest/habitat destruction for palm oil plantations are a global problem. So . . .

Not that long ago, I developed a vegan recipe for my relatives and Indian friends that I like so well it has mostly replaced my lard and tallow recipes. The key came with following the advice of @KiwiMoose to use soy wax. I also followed up on the advice of @AliOop to use sorbitol to increase large bubbles without significantly discoloring the soap. As long as I don’t add milk or bee products, the base recipe is completely vegan and sustainable. I never have to worry about giving this vegan soap to anyone.

Cathy’s Sustainable Vegan CP recipe. (Links to SoapmakingFriend)

Hard oils:
15% soy wax
18% coconut oil, 76 degrees
20% shea butter

Liquid oils:
40% high oleic sunflower oil
7% castor oil

Additives dissolved in water before combining with lye:
1.5% sodium lactate (liquid)
1.5% sodium citrate (powder)
1.5% sorbitol liquid (or .75% powder)

Add essential oils, fragrance oils, and colorants as desired.

If you want a very white bar of soap, you can use High Oleic safflower oil in place of the HO sunflower oil. I think some people may find the term sunflower, more appealing than safflower, which is my only reason for substituting one oil over the other. If you are not sure about an oil being high oleic, check the fatty acid profile on the label and look for 11% oleic. If it is only 9%, there may be a higher risk of developing DOS in the long term, so I avoid those oils.

Thanks to participating in the mini drop swirl challenge, (Thank you @Mobjack Bay!) I finally learned how to work with the soap batter when it is at emulsion. I find this vegan recipe to work very well for swirls, especially when blending by hand, as you will see in the current challenge threads.

Last month I donated soap to our church fundraiser. A woman who had received a bar of this vegan recipe soap from my donations to the food pantry volunteers, came over and told everyone how creamy and lotion-like the lather was, telling them they absolutely had to buy it. I didn’t have to say a thing and finally gave myself permission to stop worrying about the fact that I didn’t have many big sudsy bubbles in the lather.

For a visual, here is the first soap I learned to work with at emulsion for the mini drop swirl challenge. It was made with HO safflower oil. Notice how white it is with zero titanium dioxide. 😊
View attachment 77681
Thank you for that recipe! Your soap is gorgeous!
 
@ScentimentallyYours
Currently I use GW415 soy wax in a CP soap recipe. I noticed your vegan soap SMF recipe linked above uses fully hydrogenated wax in its calculations. I cannot find near me. Would you mind if I ask where you purchase your soy wax from?
I use GW415 soy wax and have purchased it from several suppliers, most recently Nature’s Garden. GW415 soy wax is the same thing as the soap calculator’s fully hydrogenated soy wax.
 
Adding 1-1.1% sorbitol in powder form dissolved in some of your water then added into your oils does really help lather. I have been using it for several years along with Sodium Gluconate as my chelator. It really helps lather. But I also use 40% Palm with 20% Shea with no waxy feel in my vegan soaps. Sold these for years.
 
Neem, believe it or not, is another fat that has a fatty acid composition similar to lard. The quality and amount of lather for soap made with neem are similar to soap made with lard. I can't say that's true in my experience with soap made with tallow or palm.

That said, neem has a distinctively strong odor that is objectionable to many people -- that's a real deal-breaker about using neem, which is why I seldom mention it.
DeeAnna, would stearic acid be an option? On paper I was able to come up with a very similar fatty acid profile to a lard-based soap by adding stearic acid to a basic palm, olive, coconut, castor oil recipe. I haven’t done a test batch yet, but am planning to.

I love the feel of soap made with lard, (mini bubbles, emolient, soft feeling) BUT my clients are mainly vegans: So: what oils would give that rich, emolient feel that lard gives with homemade soap? I'm experiementing, but so far, have not found the key to this. Suggestions?
following! I haven’t found anything I like as much as a lard based soap. I’d love a vegetarian option for friends.
 
DeeAnna, would stearic acid be an option? On paper I was able to come up with a very similar fatty acid profile to a lard-based soap by adding stearic acid to a basic palm, olive, coconut, castor oil recipe. I haven’t done a test batch yet, but am planning to.
I suppose you could use some stearic acid if you want to. Working with stearic acid (or beeswax) is way more fussy than I want when making a basic bath soap -- I'd far rather tweak the fats to get the fatty acid profile I want than add stearic acid to the recipe. I only use stearic acid when making shaving soap.
 
I use GW415 soy wax and have purchased it from several suppliers, most recently Nature’s Garden. GW415 soy wax is the same thing as the soap calculator’s fully hydrogenated soy wax.
Actually, based on available data from the manufacturer, GW415 is not fully hydrogenated. I posted this long thread where I shared what I believe is a much more likely fatty acid profile for GW 415 compared with the current options in the soap calculators. Using the fully hydrogenated soy wax profile is problematic because the difference between 87% stearic in fully hydrogenated soy wax and the estimated 34% in GW 415 is significant for recipe calculations. Using the partially hydrogenated option in the calculator isn't any better because it underestimates stearic by about 50%.

I haven't had any problems using the profile I calculated to make 20-40% GW 415 soap over 4+ years, and I don't think anyone else who has tried it has had problems either. If you don't feel comfortable using the NaOH Sap of 0.144, you can use 0.136, for example, and be aware that you will have more than the calculated superfat by 1-2% percentage. For me, the main benefit of the exercise was to generate a reasonable estimate of the fatty acid composition of GW 415 because I rely heavily of the FA profile to formulate my recipes.

@earlene was kind enough to put my estimated profile into a custom oil profile that anyone can use in the SMF calculator.

GW 415.png


One striking thing about my estimated profile is that it is not all that different from lard, or tallow, or palm. I guess that shouldn't be surprising because, unlike some of the other soy waxes, GW 415 was originally formulated to be used for frying food or in food products as a replacement for lard, tallow or palm.

Majestic Mountain Sage sells a fully hydrogenated soy wax, here. @Shirley-D found the MMS product and posted about it here.
 
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I suppose you could use some stearic acid if you want to. Working with stearic acid (or beeswax) is way more fussy than I want when making a basic bath soap -- I'd far rather tweak the fats to get the fatty acid profile I want than add stearic acid to the recipe. I only use stearic acid when making shaving soap.
It looked like kokum butter might work too. I ordered a small amount to try. I’ve stuck to CPHP so far so was hoping stearic might be better behaved. It sounds way more finicky in cold process.
 
It looked like kokum butter might work too. I ordered a small amount to try. I’ve stuck to CPHP so far so was hoping stearic might be better behaved. It sounds way more finicky in cold process.
I know a lot of soap making lingo, but I have no idea what CPHP is.

Kokum butter is a fat, so it's going to saponify in a more controlled way compared with stearic acid.

But in the end, you should do what you want to do. I'm sure either choice will produce soap in the end.
 
I know a lot of soap making lingo, but I have no idea what CPHP is.

Kokum butter is a fat, so it's going to saponify in a more controlled way compared with stearic acid.

But in the end, you should do what you want to do. I'm sure either choice will produce soap in the end.
Apologies, DeeAnna! Crock pot hot process. I’ll end up trying both :)
 

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