Double fractionated palm oil for cold process soap?

[nsnsns]

Hi! I have made a few batches of soap using other oils than palm oil. Because of the boicot it is impossible to buy in Norway, and buying it abroad is too expensive because of the shipping costs. Last night I discovered online that there actually still is one kind of palm oil availalble, but it's double fractionated. Can I use this for making cold process soap (with olive oil and coconut oil)? It is responsibly sourced, I am aware of the whole ordeal with palm oil

Very grateful for any replies! Soap making from scratch is virtually non existant here in Norway.

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

Hello and welcome!

What boycott is that? Is sale of palm oil restricted in Norway? If so, that is not so good.

An alternative to palm is lard - pig fat. It might sound odd, but it makes one heck of a soap. If you see some in the supermarket or something, give it a go at 50% of the recipe (or whatever amount you would use your lard) and run it through the soap calc, of course.

 

[IrishLass]

Welcome, Nsnsns!

Whatever you do, don't use double-fractionated palm to make soap. It's not the same as using regular palm oil and your soap will most likely not set up well, if it even sets up at all.

If you can find them in your area, the best substitutions for palm are either beef tallow, or lard (pig fat), as the good Gent mentioned. Either one of those will make awesome soap!

What boycott is that? Is sale of palm oil restricted in Norway? If so, that is not so good.

I just went and looked it up, Gent. From what I was able to glean, it seems to be a consumer driven awareness-type initiative instead of an actual restrictive import law or ban? Did I understand that correctly, Nsnsns?


IrishLass

 

[nsnsns]

Thank you for your replies. Much appreciated. Sorry to hear I can't use double fractionated palm oil, I was so excited to find it You are right about the consumer driven action to remove all use of palm oil, responsibly sourced or not. I tried red palm oil and it worked but the colour makes the soaps bright yellow. Can be ok for some scents, but not all. I'll have to check for lard in the shops, I've never bought that before.

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

If Google is to believed, Norway has a great name for lard - smult!

 

[topofmurrayhill]

Last night I discovered online that there actually still is one kind of palm oil availalble, but it's double fractionated. Can I use this for making cold process soap (with olive oil and coconut oil)?

If you would like to make a veggie soap, of course you can use it, but you have to know exactly what the product is because there are various palm fractions on the market.

The first question is whether it's liquid product (palm olein) or a solid product (palm stearin). If it's olein, see if there's a number after the name like Olein 64 or something like that. If it's stearin, it might be harder to know what it is, but find out what you can. No matter the type of product, see if there's a data sheet available from the supplier that you can download or have e-mailed to you. That could make things easy.

If it's a double-fractionated liquid product, this is called palm super olein and it would have a composition similar to the following (I've put the numbers for regular unfractionated palm oil in parentheses for comparison).

Lauric acid - 0 (0)
Myristic acid - 1 (1)
Palmitic acid - 35 (44)
Stearic Acid - 4 (5)
Oleic acid - 45 (39)
Linoleic acid - 13 (10)
Linolenic acid - 0 (0)
IV - 64 (53)

Regular palm olein can be used in place of palm and you probably wouldn't notice a difference. Super olein isn't a huge difference but you'd probably want to adjust your recipe a little because it's not as hard.

If it's palm stearin, it could be blended with a certain percentage of olive oil to make it essentially the same as palm oil. I can help you with that stuff, but first see what you can find out.

(ETA quote.)