Sunflower vs Olive Oil

[lotionlady]

I usually make my Holiday soap with 25% EVOO. But this year I'm sitting here with almost a gallon of High oleic Sunflower oil and thinking, why not sub. Is there any reason that I'm not thinking of? I ran it through soap calc and it looks pretty much the same. I hate having oils go bad on me and this seems like a plan TIA!

 

[carebear]

it's not a direct sub. i mean you can certainly replace one with the other but it will require a lye adjustment and will give you different soap...

 

[lotionlady]

My notes show they have the same SAP :? It didn't seem to change my lye measurement that I could tell.

 

[carebear]

marvelous, that means that when you (as you ALWAYS should) run the new recipe through your lye calcs the lye amount should stay the same.

but your research should show that the fatty acid profiles are different - thus they will contribute different qualities to soap.

 

[mandolyn]

soapcalc.com shows sunflower oil to be a sub for olive with no change to lye in oz.

The SAP chart I have confirms they're very close. old column shows both are .134, Milder (5% super fat) show sunflower is .1275 & OO is .128.


However, you might consider that shelf-life charts show sunflower as having about half the shelf-life as olive oil. If you super fat very much, you might consider that.

 

[wildcat]

Sunflower adds a nice lather - it is prone to DOS though.

 

[carebear]

soapcalc.com shows sunflower oil to be a sub for olive with no change to lye in oz.

The SAP chart I have confirms they're very close. old column shows both are .134, Milder (5% super fat) show sunflower is .1275 & OO is .128.

that doesn't make it a straight replacement as far as soap properties go though. They have dramatically different profiles (see their Oleic Acid and Linoleic Acid amounts below). Yes both Oleic and Linoleic supposedly contriibute to "conditioning" but still they are very different and you will not have the same soap just because they require the same amount of lye to saponify.

The Olive fatty acid profile is:
Linoleic 10%
Oleic 72%
Palmitic 11%
Stearic 4%

The Sunflower fatty acid profile is:
Linoleic 70%
Linoleic 1%
Oleic 16%
Palmitic 7%
Stearic 4%