Sunflower vs Sweet Almond Oil

[Deborah Long]

Greetings, O Forum Professionals! Once again I'm asking for your considered, experienced advice! I have family members who are allergic to Sweet Almond oil and I'm looking for a substitute. In my little pea brain, I believe that Sunflower oil would be a good substitute. The only thing that I'm wondering about are the results from the recipe builder.
When I put in just SAO, these are the fatty acids listed:
Palmitic - 7
Stearic - 0
Oleic - 71
Linoleic - 18
Linolenic - 0

Sunflower:
Palmitic - 3
Stearic - 4
Oleic - 83
Linoleic - 4
Linolenic - 1

I've left out the values where they were matching zeros.

I'm wondering what the differences mean and what affect it will have on my end product? (softness, tendency to DOS, etc.)

Thanks once again for all of your help!

 

[Chris_S]

Greetings, O Forum Professionals! Once again I'm asking for your considered, experienced advice! I have family members who are allergic to Sweet Almond oil and I'm looking for a substitute. In my little pea brain, I believe that Sunflower oil would be a good substitute. The only thing that I'm wondering about are the results from the recipe builder.
When I put in just SAO, these are the fatty acids listed:
Palmitic - 7
Stearic - 0
Oleic - 71
Linoleic - 18
Linolenic - 0

Sunflower:
Palmitic - 3
Stearic - 4
Oleic - 83
Linoleic - 4
Linolenic - 1

I've left out the values where they were matching zeros.

I'm wondering what the differences mean and what affect it will have on my end product? (softness, tendency to DOS, etc.)

Thanks once again for all of your help!

https://www.soapqueen.com/bath-and-...ow-to-substitute-oil-in-cold-process-recipes/

This is the page i always look at to find relative oil swaps. I recommend bookmarking that page iv found it invaluable.

 

[Deborah Long]

Thanks @Chris_S! I have read that page and find it invaluable, also. I happen to have sunflower oil and I thought that was pretty close...lol I probably should have made that clear in my post.

 

[lsg]

Is your sunflower oil high oleic; if not you may get DOS. You can always add some rosemary oleoresin to the soap to prevent rancidity

 

[DeeAnna]

I agree with lsg -- sweet almond oil and high oleic sunflower (83% oleic) are similar and I'd use them interchangeably.

SAO and regular (70% linoleic) sun are so different, I wouldn't use one as a sub for the other.

 

[cmzaha]

HIgh Oleic Canola is also nice. I love SAO, but it has become to expensive to use in soap, so I save it for one of my lotions. I love High Oleic Canola, HO Sunflower and Avocado

 

[Deborah Long]

@lsg and @DeeAnn - so the bottle says high oleic and mentions smoke point of 440F, but how do I find out (or figure out) the 83% oleic part?

 

[Meena]

@lsg and @DeeAnn - so the bottle says high oleic and mentions smoke point of 440F, but how do I find out (or figure out) the 83% oleic part?

From your lye calculator. It's probably the 'standard' % for high-oleic. There would have to be parity of oils, or the calculators wouldn't be able to state what the batch FA profile was.

 

[Deborah Long]

so, maybe (if I figured it right) 79% oleic? 14g total fat and 11g monounsaturated...

 

[Meena]

so, maybe (if I figured it right) 79% oleic? 14g total fat and 11g monounsaturated...

Not sure I understand your post, but if the bottle says High-Oleic, you're good and I would just let the lye calculator do the rest. If you have a target number in mind for your total oleics and conditioning values, just tweak the oil percentages of your recipe, and re-run the calculator each time to see how those values are changing. I usually save the iterations, in case I want to go back to one, until I settle on a formulation. If you are a visual person, you could write it all out on some paper and list all the values for FAs and properties on a new line each time you change your recipe percentages, so you can easily compare them. A little extra work, but can be worth it. Hope that helps.

 

[Dawni]

so, maybe (if I figured it right) 79% oleic? 14g total fat and 11g monounsaturated...

Second time today this link has come out of my bookmarks lol

DeeAnna's page shows how to tell if your oil is high, mid or low oleic

 

[Saponificarian]

Percentage of Oleic = 11/14 * 100 = 78.57% is the percentage of the monounsaturated you have. So you are right @Deborah Long

 

[SaltedFig]

The definition of high oleic sunflower oil, according to the National Sunflower Association in North Dakota, is "usually defined as having a minimum 80 percent oleic acid".

so, maybe (if I figured it right) 79% oleic? 14g total fat and 11g monounsaturated...

@Deborah Long, your calculations are correct
It is possible, however, that the bottle would have rounded the numbers, and the monounsaturated value is slightly different from your calculation.
(eg. the 11g could be as high as 11.4g and the 14g could be as low as 13.6g, which would easily give you a percentage of over 80% ... high oleic).

Given they have stated that the oil is "high oleic", and the monounsaturated (one double bond) fatty acid percentage is roughly 80%, I would go ahead and soap that sunflower oil as a high oleic sunflower oil. If there is a very slight difference in oleic acid values between soapcalc and your particular oil, it should not unduly affect the saponification value. The tendency of any difference would lean slightly towards superfatting

 

[Donee']

If I run out of sunflower I use Canola from the grocery store.
When I start buying in bulk again (25 litres a time) I will change my base recipe.
I agree completely with the rosemary addition.
But - I sell to a lot of vegans and they are hysterical about how Canola is made. Apparently it is basically a raped rape seed oil.

 

[Dawni]

Canola oil is made from genetically modified rapeseed plants, to put it in very simple, unscientific words. That's what I understood, correct me if I'm wrong.

Over here, where people are less knowledgeable about it, they even label it as canola/rapeseed so it's best to buy that in from the supermarket so you're at least somewhat sure of the labeling.

I have not found actual rapeseed oil here.

 

[Deborah Long]

@SaltedFig - Thanks! It says high oleic all over the bottle, so I appreciate that tidbit of knowledge about the higher/lower percentages and being rounded...
@Saponificarian - Glad to know I can still use a calculator! I just was unsure that I was following DeeAnna's math correctly. Math is not my strong suit...

Awesome, thanks everyone! I was just concerned about causing allergic reactions with the Sweet Almond oil!

 

[DeeAnna]

I didn't do any math. Since I didn't know the exact oil you had, I used the fatty acid profile for HO sunflower in my soap recipe calculator. But the fatty acid info in the calcs are averages. Since the monounsaturated fat on your specific product is 11 grams out of 14 g of total fat, then you calculated an accurate answer for your oil.