Looking For Low or No OO Soap

[DianaMoon]

I'm not crazy about olive oil. Substituting is tricky. On hand, I have cocoa butter, jojoba oil (yes, I know, no saponifiables, but could be useful), coconut oil and castor. If I have to add OO to soften the bar a bit I will, but does anyone have a suggestion for percentages?

I did a soap calc with castor (5%), cocoa butter (50%), coconut oil (25%), jojoba (5%) and olive oil (15%) and got a reasonable 53 hardness. But will 50% cocoa butter make it brittle?

 

[MorpheusPA]

Most of the butters can render things rather brittle--and some can kill lather. I'm not sure about cocoa as I've never used it as anything more than an accent!

You can remove OO from almost any recipe and substitute--if your sensibilities allow--lard. Or tallow if you must (I find tallow a bit more cleansing). Palm will do, although I personally find that the harshest of the three.

My summer soap includes no OO, mostly tallow, and some coconut and castor just for bubbles. My winter soap includes OO, but I could just as easily use high-oleic sunflower or safflower oil.

 

[DianaMoon]

At this point, I don't want to buy anything new. I do have some leftover beef tallow, but I would rather not use it in this recipe. I made a beef tallow mini-batch, and I am not crazy about the consistency it imparts.. I think I am going to experiment with the 50% cocoa butter recipe using 15% olive oil. The only thing I have against olive oil is that it has a slimy undertone that I am not crazy about, but I think it 15% that probably won't be terribly apparent...

After all, it's only soap.

 

[dixiedragon]

I know you say you don't want to buy anything new, but it doesn't have to be something special or fancy. You can use canola oil or soy. Many grocery stores also have sunflower and safflower now as well. I really like rice bran, which is often available at Asian groceries.

 

[amd]

Why don't you like OO?

I think 50% cocoa butter is going to be too much, you will have a very low lather soap. Being at the high end of the hardness scale isn't necessarily a good thing. I usually aim for 35 personally. I played around with cocoa butter a bit in the past, starting at 20% and worked my way down. Even at 20% I found my soap difficult to lather, but I also use shea butter which may contribute to my case. I currently use 5% because it gives the soap a bit of hardness without impacting the lather. I second Dixiedragon on looking at purchasing a less expensive oil. Sunflower oil can make a nice soap for personal use, as well as something like a crisco shortening which will add to bar hardness but still give a nice lather.

If you want to stick with the oils you have listed, I would personally try this:
castor (5%), cocoa butter (15%), coconut oil (30%), jojoba (25%) and olive oil (25%)
It's a lot of jojoba, but for personal use you should be able to use the oils you want to use and not have other people's ideas of "too expensive" dictate what you do.

 

[DianaMoon]

You can use canola oil or soy.

I have canola but I heard it leads to DOS. Myth or fact?

 

[jcandleattic]

I have canola but I heard it leads to DOS. Myth or fact?

It can, and it depends a lot on the environment of the soap as well. Some people use it and have never had DOS, others use it and will get DOS directly related to it's usage. Soaping, along with many other crafts is a lot of trial and error. You never know what will happen with YOUR soaps until you experiment with them.

 

[DianaMoon]

Why don't you like OO?

I think 50% cocoa butter is going to be too much, you will have a very low lather soap. Being at the high end of the hardness scale isn't necessarily a good thing. I usually aim for 35 personally. I played around with cocoa butter a bit in the past, starting at 20% and worked my way down. Even at 20% I found my soap difficult to lather, but I also use shea butter which may contribute to my case. I currently use 5% because it gives the soap a bit of hardness without impacting the lather. I second Dixiedragon on looking at purchasing a less expensive oil. Sunflower oil can make a nice soap for personal use, as well as something like a crisco shortening which will add to bar hardness but still give a nice lather.

If you want to stick with the oils you have listed, I would personally try this:
castor (5%), cocoa butter (15%), coconut oil (30%), jojoba (25%) and olive oil (25%)
It's a lot of jojoba, but for personal use you should be able to use the oils you want to use and not have other people's ideas of "too expensive" dictate what you do.

Thanks for all the tips.

1. I don't like OO because to me it gives a slimy feeling.

2. You mention sunflower oil. Whenever I read about it as a sub for OO, it's high oleic. Do you agree w/this? That's a specialty product. I'd rather go to the grocery store & buy.

3. About the jojoba - I happen to have a bunch of it hanging around because I was able to get them dirt cheap. So the expense factor isn't one here. Usually, for me, it is.

 

[amd]

2. You mention sunflower oil. Whenever I read about it as a sub for OO, it's high oleic. Do you agree w/this? That's a specialty product. I'd rather go to the grocery store & buy.

3. About the jojoba - I happen to have a bunch of it hanging around because I was able to get them dirt cheap. So the expense factor isn't one here. Usually, for me, it is.

For the sunflower oil, you can buy the high oleic sunflower in the grocery store - look for labels that say "made for frying". This means that they are heat stable, which is the high oleic coming into play.

I thought that was you that had mentioned having a good deal of jojoba!

 

[DianaMoon]

For the sunflower oil, you can buy the high oleic sunflower in the grocery store - look for labels that say "made for frying". This means that they are heat stable, which is the high oleic coming into play.

I thought that was you that had mentioned having a good deal of jojoba!

Yeah, that was me - I'm not even sure how I got it, some special. I am the opposite of a hoarder & was thinking of throwing them out before I got interested in soaping - oy. So happy I did not.

About the lathering, I have a bag of sodium citrate from a failed food science experiment (don't ask) & will use that. Have heard it helps w/lather.

Amazing how many of the odds & ends I have hanging around have helped in soaping.

 

[cmzaha]

I use regular and HO sunflower and canola with no problems. My problem oil is lard so I never go over 25% with it. Tallow actually makes a wonderful long lasting cream lather soap if used with other fats keeping it at or below 45%. Tallow makes an awful single oil soap. If you go with such a high hard butter as the coco butter hopefully you make a very small batch, because I am guessing you may be disappointed. But we all have different opinions. As for OO I very seldom use it except when I make 100% castile soaps once a year, I hate the feel of it in soap. To me it always feels sticky.

 

[DianaMoon]

I use regular and HO sunflower and canola with no problems. My problem oil is lard so I never go over 25% with it. Tallow actually makes a wonderful long lasting cream lather soap if used with other fats keeping it at or below 45%. Tallow makes an awful single oil soap. If you go with such a high hard butter as the coco butter hopefully you make a very small batch, because I am guessing you may be disappointed. But we all have different opinions. As for OO I very seldom use it except when I make 100% castile soaps once a year, I hate the feel of it in soap. To me it always feels sticky.

How does the canola oil feel? I'm thinking I will use the percentages that amd suggested but sub the canola. Will the 25% jojoba make it very soft?

 

[SoapingChick]

I've played around with a couple of fairly high cocoa butter soap I liked a lot - actually my mother's husband's favorite; 27-30% cocoa butter, 6-10% castor and the rest coconut. They all turned out great, made 2 with cocoa and 3 (if I recall correctly) in the same realm, with shea replacing the cocoa butter. I call them my man soaps Cause of the very quick and abundant lather. (Thank you coconut!)
I wanna find my recipes and check for correct amounts but it's almost midnight and I'm in bed. I kinda wanna say they 'feel' like they can take more of the hard butters.. All my soaps have been different recipes, I love love love the never-ending creative outlet.
Good luck & happy soaping! Can't wait to hear what you come up with

ETA: I've superfatted at around 18-20% (IIRC)

 

[psfred]

Soy, canola, or HO safflower will work very well to replace olive oil. The safflower is very close to OO though, so if there is something about the high oleic oil in the soap you don't like, probably best to use something else.

Large amounts of cocoa butter is going to be expensive, I prefer to eat mine than make soap with it. Tallow or lard work very well, and make very nice soap. Lard is very close to human fat, works very well as superfat too.

You can also make a very nice "balanced" soap with only the tallow base shortening from Walmart, easiest soap recipe on the planet.

 

[DianaMoon]

I've played around with a couple of fairly high cocoa butter soap I liked a lot - actually my mother's husband's favorite; 27-30% cocoa butter, 6-10% castor and the rest coconut. They all turned out great, made 2 with cocoa and 3 (if I recall correctly) in the same realm, with shea replacing the cocoa butter. I call them my man soaps Cause of the very quick and abundant lather. (Thank you coconut!)
I wanna find my recipes and check for correct amounts but it's almost midnight and I'm in bed. I kinda wanna say they 'feel' like they can take more of the hard butters.. All my soaps have been different recipes, I love love love the never-ending creative outlet.
Good luck & happy soaping! Can't wait to hear what you come up with

ETA: I've superfatted at around 18-20% (IIRC)

Well - you've given me back the courage of my convictions. i might well go Cocoa/Coconut/Castor and Jojoba, because I have it, to see what happens. I can wait for your answer - do you really suggest superfatting at 20% I'm scared to go above 10%.

 

[psfred]

Jojoba has a lot of non-saponifing stuff in it, and too much can make for greasy soap. You will only need high superfat if you use a very large proportion of coconut oil -- it's very drying to most people.

Your soap will be fine, I made one with fairly high cocoa butter and it's a nice soap. Just very expensive compared to lard or tallow or palm, all of which also make very nice soaps. Personally I'm quite happy with high lard or tallow soaps, they lather very nicely and keep well. I've also made a very nice soap from old vegetable oil (I assumed half canola and half soy oil) and while it took a while to harden up well, it's very nice soap. Almost no scent of stale donut left.....

Experiment to your heart's delight, so long as you use a proper lye calculator, you will get soap from whatever oils you use. Some may not be very good soaps, but they will be soap!

 

[cmzaha]

The best for you to do is try it. Experimenting is a large part of the art of soapmaking. Some of us will tell you it will make a bad soap because we would not like it, others will say it is great, so you have to make it and make up your own mind.

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

.........About the lathering, I have a bag of sodium citrate from a failed food science experiment (don't ask) & will use that. Have heard it helps w/lather.......

Many additives don't actually create lather, but boosts what is already there. Like castor - castor doesn't lather, but it "upgrades" the lather from the oils which do lather.

If your recipe would struggle to lather, additives may help some, but they can only work with what they have.

 

[soapmaker]

Just my two cents....our grocery stores only carry mid-oleic sunflower oil in the 3L size. I use that in place of OO.

 

[shunt2011]

Also, don’t SF at 20%. I would do 3-5% for your recipe