Vegan Palm Free Soap

[Dean]

Post your favorite vegan and palm-free recipe. Mine is here.

 

[shunt2011]

There are quite a few on the forum that have been shared. There's also a couple recent topics on it.

 

[cmzaha]

I do not make such. Palm for me in vegan soap. Lard and tallow in my non-vegan

 

[dixiedragon]

50% shea
5% castor
20% coconut
25% sunflower
2% superfat
Let this age at least 8 weeks.

Dean, is there a reason you chose sweet almond at 40%? I want to try a high SW recipe but I think I'd divide the 40% between olive, rice bran and sunflower.

 

[Dean]

I use almond because it rated higher than the other oleic oils on an online lather test. I'm sure any high oleic will do tho.

 

[KiwiMoose]

I think I shall dub myself the queen of “How many different oils can I get into a batch of soap”. Only because I spend hours on soap Calc investigating the different properties of oils and these are the ones I’ve decided I like
I don’t use nut oils because my son has a nut allergy.
Soy wax: 20%
OO: 20%
Coconut oil: 15%
Apricot Kernel oil: 15%
Babassu oil: 10%
Castor oil: 10%
Shea butter: 10%
Super fat 5%

 

[emi]

Haha me too! I spend hours on calc formulating recipes. It's actually pretty tricky without palm and animal fats which actually forced me to learn a lot of the properties of oils and their acids. This one of favorite so far. Love the lather of it. SF 5%.

In the past on this forum I got a snooty unhelpful reply to me simply asking for a sub for animal fat/palm. Puh-leeeeese.

 

[Dean]

I think I shall dub myself the queen of “How many different oils can I get into a batch of soap”. Only because I spend hours on soap Calc investigating the different properties of oils and these are the ones I’ve decided I like
I don’t use nut oils because my son has a nut allergy.
Soy wax: 20%
OO: 20%
Coconut oil: 15%
Apricot Kernel oil: 15%
Babassu oil: 10%
Castor oil: 10%
Shea butter: 10%
Super fat 5%

Princess Poly-oil

 

[Deadgroovy]

Does anyone here that sells soap see any advantage in going palm free? Do you get people asking for palm free soap?
All my soaps contain palm oil and am thinking of trying shea butter as a replacement. I need to decide whether or not to go palm free before I submit for cosmetic testing

 

[emi]

I don't sell soap but I if I were to buy it I'd avoid palm oil and I don't make soap with it either. This is one of the many articles online about it.
https://www.ecowatch.com/why-is-palm-oil-so-bad-1881907014.html
It became such an issue there are certification organizations now for "sustainably sourced" palm oil, here's another article and video about that.
https://greenpalm.org/about-palm-oil/sustainable-palm-oil
So if I had to use palm oil or palm kernel oil, I'd use the certified kind, but I'd just rather not deal with it all (in food too, but MUCH harder to avoid) and promote all the other oils and butters we can use. That's just my 2 cents.

*That's actually the only reason I even started making soap to begin with. I started to realize that so much soap out there has palm oil and animal fats and was hard to avoid, and the boutique-y one's that advertised soap without palm/animal oils tended to be so expensive. I started with boring non-colored, just lavender bars purely for personal use. But now I'm having all kinds of fun with it and giving them away as gifts!

*And for subs, palm has palmitic and oleic acids. Oleic is easy to get in other common oils. But palmitic was harder to find other than animal fats. Palm and animal fats seem to have similar acid content. The oil I found that's relatively common with some palmitic and oleic was cocoa butter. Still not as high as palm though. I wouldn't use it necessarily as a direct substitute for palm in a recipe, but I use it to up the palmitic acid in a recipe. I've learned that too much cocoa butter can make a brittle bar. There's some bizarre ones I've never used like Japan wax and Mafura butter that have higher palmitic acid levels. I'm a newbie so maybe someone else can chime in on my logic of acid content for palm sub?

 

[Dean]

Does anyone here that sells soap see any advantage in going palm free? Do you get people asking for palm free soap?
All my soaps contain palm oil and am thinking of trying shea butter as a replacement. I need to decide whether or not to go palm free before I submit for cosmetic testing

I don't sell but a seller recently posted that she was asked only once by a customer about palm content. Maybe she'll chime in.

*That's actually the only reason I even started making soap to begin with. I started to realize that so much soap out there has palm oil and animal fats and was hard to avoid, and the boutique-y one's that advertised soap without palm/animal oils tended to be so expensive. I started with boring non-colored, just lavender bars purely for personal use. But now I'm having all kinds of fun with it and giving them away as gifts!

*And for subs, palm has palmitic and oleic acids. Oleic is easy to get in other common oils. But palmitic was harder to find other than animal fats. Palm and animal fats seem to have similar acid content. The oil I found that's relatively common with some palmitic and oleic was cocoa butter. Still not as high as palm though. I wouldn't use it necessarily as a direct substitute for palm in a recipe, but I use it to up the palmitic acid in a recipe. I've learned that too much cocoa butter can make a brittle bar. There's some bizarre ones I've never used like Japan wax and Mafura butter that have higher palmitic acid levels. I'm a newbie so maybe someone else can chime in on my logic of acid content for palm sub?

I started soaping too because I couldn't find vegan palm-free soap at the store.

 

[penelopejane]

Haha me too! I spend hours on calc formulating recipes. It's actually pretty tricky without palm and animal fats which actually forced me to learn a lot of the properties of oils and their acids. This one of favorite so far. Love the lather of it. SF 5%.
View attachment 34388
In the past on this forum I got a snooty unhelpful reply to me simply asking for a sub for animal fat/palm. Puh-leeeeese.

Try this recipe for a body soap. Search in the forum for shampoo bar comments before you think of using on your hair but it’s great on your skin:
https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/shampoo-bar-thanks-lindy.30946/

I don’t use oils at <5% (except castor oil) as I can’t tell the difference. Try 10% minimum. Castor I use at 5%. Too much castor makes a sticky bar.

Olive oil doesn’t rate well on the soap calcs oil qualities so formulating recipes relying on soap calc oil qualities can be wildly misleading. It makes a hard bar.

I mostly make vegan, palm free soap. I have one honey soap that breaks that rule.

 

[shunt2011]

The recipe above makes a lovely soap. I do sell and have never had anyone question the use of palm and only two have questioned lard. I’ve been selling for 7 years.

 

[SaltedFig]

Dean, can you post the recipe here?

I have an ad-blocker setup that send soapee into a continuous (unresolved) loading loop .

I tend to use cocoa butter for the the stearic/palmitic ... it's not perfect, but I rather like the scent

 

[Dean]

Dean, can you post the recipe here?

I have an ad-blocker setup that send soapee into a continuous (unresolved) loading loop .

I tend to use cocoa butter for the the stearic/palmitic ... it's not perfect, but I rather like the scent

Hi Fig.

I get the loop at work. Now I kno y.

Its a soy wax recipie. Do u still want it reposted?

 

[SaltedFig]

Nah ... I used an alternate browser (no blockers) to go peak

(Maybe other folk might )

 

[Jenn]

Does anyone here that sells soap see any advantage in going palm free? Do you get people asking for palm free soap?
All my soaps contain palm oil and am thinking of trying shea butter as a replacement. I need to decide whether or not to go palm free before I submit for cosmetic testing

I asked soapers at a couple shows and thdy said that they have a lot of rewuest for palm free even though there palm is ethically sourced

 

[cmzaha]

Haha me too! I spend hours on calc formulating recipes. It's actually pretty tricky without palm and animal fats which actually forced me to learn a lot of the properties of oils and their acids. This one of favorite so far. Love the lather of it. SF 5%.
View attachment 34388
In the past on this forum I got a snooty unhelpful reply to me simply asking for a sub for animal fat/palm. Puh-leeeeese.

I doubt it was snooty, but merely the opinion of the person that answered. We all have different opinions and not always are our answers appreciated. I use palm, lard, tallow, camel fat, chicken fat, basically any fat I can get my hands on and will never apologize for my decisions.

I do sell and I can count on one hand how many times I am asked about palm. If a person does not want animal fat soap I have vegan soap to offer, made with palm. I simply cannot come up with a soap with the qualities I want without using palm or hard butters, such as kokum, illipe, coco butter etc and they are just to expensive to use when selling soap.

While your recipe will be a very nice soap it does not have the longevity that my customers expect. You can also achieve the same feel in a soap without so many different oils, which makes a big difference if selling

 

[Dean]

Sustainable palm is really not that sustainable. https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/sustainable-palm-oil-no-not-really/

Interestingly palm oil production doesn't just create green house gasses that causes climate change that is having catostrophic effects on all life forms including humans, destroy habitats, endanger animal species but it also “leads to increased landlessness for poorer villagers and greater inequality between rich and poor; it brings low-paid, insecure jobs with inadequate health and safety provision.”

Check out this video.

 

[cmzaha]

Hopefully I made them smaller. I really do not have a photo editor on the computer at moms