Olive Oil vs Palm Oil

[Guest]

I am so sorry but I tried to search and couldn't find the info.
I know this subject has been talked about a lot but I just can't seem to find it in my notes so I have to ask:
Is it Palm Oil that you can use instead of Olive Oil? I want to put in an order and since the price of Olive Oil has gotten so high I really wanted to try Palm and see if it makes a difference.
What do you guys think?
JanMO

 

[reallyrita]

Olive Oil versus Palm Oil

I have been making CP soap for only a few months now, so I am not the expert here...but I have been doing alot of research on oils and their properties in soap. Olive oil is a liquid oil and Palm Oil is a hard oil. They contribute very different things to your soap. Although I have used Olive oil as the main liquidg oil in my soaps so far, I believe that you can substitute Rice Bran oil for OO. Maybe even canola for all or part of the OO. You would need to run your recipe through a lye calculator to check your numbers out. You can use Crisco, lard or tallow in place of PO as they are hard oils also. But again, you have to redo your numbers to make sure your lye and water are correct for your substitutions. I hope this helps until someone more experienced than me chimes in here.

 

[NEASoapWorks]

No, Palm oil can't be substituted for Olive Oil — they bring totally different properties to soap. Palm adds hardness. If you want to substitute for Olive, consider Rice Bran. A lot of soapers use it, instead of Olive because it's cheaper.

And no, you don't just substitute out one oil for another. You have to run the new recipe (with the Rice Bran, or other oil) thru a calculator.

I don't usually see Canola used in the same high amts as Olive Oil and Rice Bran. High amounts of Canola can cause DOS, so I've read/heard.

 

[Guest]

Thank you. I didn't know that it was a hard oil.

I checked the soap calculator and found that Safflower and Sunflower didn't change the numbers of my recipe much at all when exchanged for Olive Oil! I have Safflower here so I will test it.

 

[Guest]

I don't usually see Canola used in the same high amts as Olive Oil and Rice Bran. High amounts of Canola can cause DOS, so I've read/heard.

I have heard this too and I've also heard people saying they have no problems at all. I have gone up to 15% with no problem but have been afraid to go higher. SOOOOOO....

Just because I felt like soaping and was out of Olive and Rice bran - I used 40% Canola in a recipe and 60% in another to test the theory. So I guess we'll see! I personally like Canola in my soaps and I like Soy too.

The things I'll come up with as an excuse to make soap.

 

[Guest]

I did try canola at a low percentage and the bars I had that were a year old had dos so I am not happy with canola.

It must have been rice bran oil that I was thinking of. I'm out of that too. But, I am in the process of using Safflower instead of Olive Oil.

I know not to just exchange one oil for another without going through a calculator but thank you so much for watching out for me.

 

[Guest]

Hi!

There is no sub for Palm except for Lard or Tallow really. You can harden soap up using cocoa butter and soy wax etc - but Palm is the veggie equivalent to lard and tallow. Most soapers sub out rice bran oil for olive as it is very similar in characteristics and not a hard oil like Palm.

I have a bar of soap with Canola that is well over a year old that I purchased from another soaper not too long ago with no DOS so I think it may depend on many factors. Of course I am taking their word for it that it's that old. I'm having fun experimenting nonetheless.