oil substitutions for soap making

[dixiedragon]

ah, that's a bummer. allergies are no fun.

Ah. That is a bummer! I have wondered about soaping with things like rice milk, oat milk, flax milk, etc. Might be interesting! And since you aren't drinking it, you can make it pretty cheaply since you aren't worried about it separating or being lumpy.

 

[topofmurrayhill]

It's never been clear to me what a 'cheap filler oil' is. The most useful soaping oils are pretty common, and usefulness doesn't correlate well with price. The qualities of soap come from the sum and balance of all the oils. I don't think I can take any recipe I've made and point to what is the filler part of it.

Fillers in soap are a real subject, especially going back in time, but that's something different.

 

[reflection]

It's never been clear to me what a 'cheap filler oil' is. The most useful soaping oils are pretty common, and usefulness doesn't correlate well with price. The qualities of soap come from the sum and balance of all the oils.

it's great to hear that some of the most useful soaping oils are the most common and not expensive. it's also good we have so many options to choose from with all our different preferences that dixie mentioned.

this brings up something i was wondering for the lard lovers. do you love the lard mostly because of it's qualities for soap or did you start using it to avoid using palm oil or is it price or a combination of the above reasons? i ask because i was surprised to see so many here recommend lard and am wondering why it is such a favorite. i will probably try it at some point but right now i'm loving shea butter and want to try some of the other butters in my homemade concoctions.

 

[topofmurrayhill]

this brings up something i was wondering for the lard lovers. do you love the lard mostly because of it's qualities for soap or did you start using it to avoid using palm oil or is it price or a combination of the above reasons? i ask because i was surprised to see so many here recommend lard and am wondering why it is such a favorite. i will probably try it at some point but right now i'm loving shea butter and want to try some of the other butters in my homemade concoctions.

It's a current fad on the board. These things can come and go. At times there has been some resistance to animal fats and more recently resistance to palm oil. But it's a combination of reasons, including the fact that there are some simple lard recipes that make very good soap. Lard can be an extremely variable product depending on how it's manufactured, so some of us have discovered samples that can be very prone to DOS.

 

[snappyllama]

it's great to hear that some of the most useful soaping oils are the most common and not expensive. it's also good we have so many options to choose from with all our different preferences that dixie mentioned.

this brings up something i was wondering for the lard lovers. do you love the lard mostly because of it's qualities for soap or did you start using it to avoid using palm oil or is it price or a combination of the above reasons? i ask because i was surprised to see so many here recommend lard and am wondering why it is such a favorite. i will probably try it at some point but right now i'm loving shea butter and want to try some of the other butters in my homemade concoctions.

I really like the way my high lard soaps perform... 50%-60%. The lather is luscious feeling... creamy and lotiony.

Palm just doesn't feel the same to me (plus there's the sustainability-thing). Tallow is a close contender, but I end up trying to tweak my recipe to get it more lardy-feeling.

I'm just a hobbyist so keeping costs down isn't really a determining factor... within reason.

 

[Cindy2428]

Lard just makes great soap. When I started, there was no way I was going to put "piggy" on my body or horrors! my face. Then the lard "enablers" here made me curious. Loved it, and my favorite bars to date have lard in them. No fad - once you try it you understand why.

 

[Arimara]

it's great to hear that some of the most useful soaping oils are the most common and not expensive. it's also good we have so many options to choose from with all our different preferences that dixie mentioned.

this brings up something i was wondering for the lard lovers. do you love the lard mostly because of it's qualities for soap or did you start using it to avoid using palm oil or is it price or a combination of the above reasons? i ask because i was surprised to see so many here recommend lard and am wondering why it is such a favorite. i will probably try it at some point but right now i'm loving shea butter and want to try some of the other butters in my homemade concoctions.

I'm more of a tallow gal, especially since my pork intolerances even affect my skin(whyyyy!:cry. A lardy soap really feels nice and it's a touch more gentle than palm and tallow to me. The only thing I hate about the lard I've used is that I get that piggy smell after 6 weeks curing and I have to hold on to it longer to let the smell cure out. So, if you get interested, try some lard out.

For the record, I don't mind palm I just hate how waxy it can get past 40%. I'm also too lazy to order it now.

 

[reflection]

Lard just makes great soap. When I started, there was no way I was going to put "piggy" on my body or horrors! my face. Then the lard "enablers" here made me curious. Loved it, and my favorite bars to date have lard in them. No fad - once you try it you understand why.

too funny. i am fully expecting this forum to create a bacon soap if there isn't one yet.

i actually do use a lard soap on my face for a skin condition. it helps some but i decided it's too expensive to use all over. it's really simple and i like it well enough. i just looked it up and it is lard, lye & water. that's it! didn't realize that is even possible. i'm sure with some other oils a lard soap would probably be a lot nicer. i also have used a lard laundry bar for making laundry soap. i thought i was buying coconut but it's lard. love homemade laundry powder but i'll do coconut next time just to compare. by then i'll hopefully make my own.

i just realized the 3 soaps i buy are all 100% of the oils: the lard face one, kirk's 100% coconut castile, and a true olive oil castile albeit a cheapy one. i can't afford to buy expensive soaps retail but i can afford to make expensive soaps.

the soap i just loved was a burt's bees honey & shea butter soap that is now discontinued. i recently wrote down the ingredients and will try to make something similar. actually, the one recipe i am planning with CO/OO/Shea may be somewhat similar. i have a feeling i'll be a butters girl.

ok, back to researching the remaining supplies i need.

 

[ngian]

I really like the way my high lard soaps perform... 50%-60%. The lather is luscious feeling... creamy and lotiony.

Palm just doesn't feel the same to me (plus there's the sustainability-thing). Tallow is a close contender, but I end up trying to tweak my recipe to get it more lardy-feeling.

Well the description you give somehow can be "decoded" by looking at their fatty acids profiles.

Palm is somehow a balance between hard (palmitic/stearic) and soft (oleic/Linoleic) FAs (49% - 49% based on soapcalc) while Lard has less hard and more soft FAs (41%-52%) giving a little more of that known snotty (silky) feeling in the final soap that one can get more intensive from olive oil alone.

That balance in Lard also makes it a little less prone to fast tracing compared to palm, as the bigger % of oleic FA it has, takes a little longer for it to reach trace.

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

Again, I find the use of the word "fad" to be borderline offensive. I use lard because it is a very good soaping oil. I've used palm and prefer the feeling from lard. To say that it is a fad is akin to saying that using coconut is a fad - there are alternatives, but the majority of people use it because of the oil itself rather than any particular fashion of the season. To say it is a fad is to suggest something else will take the place of lard in my recipes and as yet I don't see anything that would do that.

Now, lard may or may not wax or wane in general popularity here as different people join or leave, but that is different from a fad, as the lard lovers will still be loving lard, just no longer the majority on the boards

 

[reflection]

Again, I find the use of the word "fad" to be borderline offensive. I use lard because it is a very good soaping oil. I've used palm and prefer the feeling from lard. To say that it is a fad is akin to saying that using coconut is a fad - there are alternatives, but the majority of people use it because of the oil itself rather than any particular fashion of the season. To say it is a fad is to suggest something else will take the place of lard in my recipes and as yet I don't see anything that would do that.

Now, lard may or may not wax or wane in general popularity here as different people join or leave, but that is different from a fad, as the lard lovers will still be loving lard, just no longer the majority on the boards

maybe "trend" is a better word to use? i do think all the oils are perfectly fine but was just surprised so many use lard due to many people avoiding animal fats these days.

 

[topofmurrayhill]

Again, I find the use of the word "fad" to be borderline offensive. I use lard because it is a very good soaping oil. I've used palm and prefer the feeling from lard. To say that it is a fad is akin to saying that using coconut is a fad - there are alternatives, but the majority of people use it because of the oil itself rather than any particular fashion of the season. To say it is a fad is to suggest something else will take the place of lard in my recipes and as yet I don't see anything that would do that.

Now, lard may or may not wax or wane in general popularity here as different people join or leave, but that is different from a fad, as the lard lovers will still be loving lard, just no longer the majority on the boards

I stand by my post 110%.

The credit I gave to the reason people like lard is quite sufficient. As you acknowledge, interest on SMF could wax and wane. That's why I called it "a current fad on this board." What people do after they leave here is speculative. I personally speculate that if carebear (Carol Grant) and others were still soaping they would still be here. But it's probably true that lard is popular with any 125 year-olds still soaping.

Is there a noticeable interest in lard beyond what has spread among several individuals here? Questionable. Nobody sells lard except Soaper's Choice. Nobody talks much about lard outside of SMF. Even here, most people either make lard soap for their own use, or they sell it in places where people are familiar with raising animals in a sensible manner and rendering fat.

It's only in the past several years that people have seriously weighed animal fat vs. palm oil. That's a tough one too. The vast majority of commercial lard comes from pigs who spend the 6 months of their short, miserable lives in a crate they can't turn around it. Not clear which is the socially responsible choice.

Virtually no oils substitute directly for each other. If you change the oil you have to change the recipe. Taking that into account, give me your favorite lard soap and I can make it with vegetable oil. Lard is totally replaceable with oils that are rarely DOS bombs, as previously described. Coconut and PKO aren't replaceable because alternatives are practically the same and/or way more rare and expensive.

To sum up, crafters used lard years before you made your first soap and have always known the qualities it contributed to soap. I ordered my first 50 lb cube of lard from SC before ANY of the lardinators here ever picked up a stick blender. Interest in lard has varied for a number of perfectly supportable reasons. If you think my assessment is wrong, let's re-assess around 2028 or so.

 

[earlene]

Lard can be an extremely variable product depending on how it's manufactured, so some of us have discovered samples that can be very prone to DOS.

Would you recommend using ROE with lard?

Nobody sells lard except Soaper's Choice.

When you say 'nobody sells lard except..' you are referring to soapmaking suppliers, not the regular grocery stores where it is fairly easy to find, right?

Someone mentioned lard being expensive. I find it to be quite inexpensive. (Or maybe I misread that.) I have only used it recently to see how it soaps and for some of my non-vegetarian family to use. I am not yet sure if I will continue to use it or not, as I don't much like the smell. But I am curious about the DOS experience and if I should add ROE when using lard, which I buy from the grocery store.

 

[topofmurrayhill]

Would you recommend using ROE with lard?

When you say 'nobody sells lard except..' you are referring to soapmaking suppliers, not the regular grocery stores where it is fairly easy to find, right?

Someone mentioned lard being expensive. I find it to be quite inexpensive. (Or maybe I misread that.) I have only used it recently to see how it soaps and for some of my non-vegetarian family to use. I am not yet sure if I will continue to use it or not, as I don't much like the smell. But I am curious about the DOS experience and if I should add ROE when using lard, which I buy from the grocery store.

People have had different experiences, but from the sum total of evidence it's probably a good idea to use ROE or some stabilizer system with lard.

Most oils will create soap that's stable for some reasonable time without stabilizers. Some people never use them at all. I tried Fannie and Flo leaf lard and had the worst DOS experience in all my years of soaping, though it looked and smelled fine when I made the batch. I made the identical recipe with lard from a different source and got some spots in a comparable time frame, but it wasn't as bad. cmzaha has a thread about her DOS experiences with lard. I didn't know what to think of it until it happened to me.

I used different lard in smaller quantities in the past and made soap that lasted a good 6 or 7 years before showing signs of age. I guess there are a number of factors that can come into play. But if we were talking palm oil this would definitely not come up as an issue.

If I had to guess, I'd speculate that using locally or artisanally rendered lard is russian roulette, and that larger commercial brands that are stabilized and hydrogenated are the safest bet. You could also order those big cubes from SC. The smaller size seems to be a different product; it's runny and probably not hydrogenated.

Yep, grocery stores have lard. They also have olive oil. Soap suppliers all have olive oil too. Hardly any have lard.

 

[Susie]

Would you recommend using ROE with lard?



When you say 'nobody sells lard except..' you are referring to soapmaking suppliers, not the regular grocery stores where it is fairly easy to find, right?

Someone mentioned lard being expensive. I find it to be quite inexpensive. (Or maybe I misread that.) I have only used it recently to see how it soaps and for some of my non-vegetarian family to use. I am not yet sure if I will continue to use it or not, as I don't much like the smell. But I am curious about the DOS experience and if I should add ROE when using lard, which I buy from the grocery store.

No need to add ROE to commercially produced lard that has BHT in it.

 

[reflection]

Would you recommend using ROE with lard?

fish eggs?! you soapers put fish eggs in your soap?

 

[topofmurrayhill]

No need to add ROE to commercially produced lard that has BHT in it.

That sounds reasonable, but how were you able to come to the conclusion when Cmzaha got DOS with various lards, including commercial brands that had one of the usual stabilizer cocktails like BHT/citric?

 

[lsg]

Now, lard may or may not wax or wane in general popularity here as different people join or leave, but that is different from a fad, as the lard lovers will still be loving lard, just no longer the majority on the boards

I agree. Lard and tallow have been used throughout the ages since soap making began. I don't think that either is a passing fad.

 

[Arimara]

maybe "trend" is a better word to use? i do think all the oils are perfectly fine but was just surprised so many use lard due to many people avoiding animal fats these days.

People's beliefs aside, some of that is due to advertisement and marketing (ie animal fats are inferior) and some due to propaganda (think overly imposing vegan movements and animal rightist groups). I'm all for the use of animal fats in soap as it is used for a better purpose than attracting pets to cheap junk pet food with "meat" in it. It's using up a by-product and many people have benefited from it.

 

[reflection]

i didn't mean to start a controversy. my apology everyone.