Palm Oil

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Cobelloy

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I know palm oil is the bomb for soap, but can't we do without? Even when you make sure you source the stuff that doesn't kill the tigers and orang-utans, many suppliers are mislabelling RSPO or are unaware of parts of the supply chain that are not secure. And, using palm oil at all only supports the demand for a mostly terribly destructive product. I'm not perfect with this either, while I don't buy palm oil for soap and do my best to buy palm oil free food/cosmetics etc, there's so many things that are part of the palm oil chain that sneak in to the shopping basket, and some items just can't be easily substituted.

I suppose I'm asking why Palm over coconut or cocoa butter? I know there's issues with the supply of those also, but the scale of the palm oil environmental problems right now far outweighs those. I mainly make coconut/olive oil soap and its just lovely, why is palm still the first choice?
 
You don’t have to use palm, I don’t and several other members choose not to as well.

The reason people use palm relates to oil qualities after the soap finishes turning into soap. Coconut oil is nice on the skin but coconut oil soap can be very harsh. Many people are sensitive to the amount of cleansing power coconut can have (there are scientific reasons but I’m not very good at explaining them. It’s a fatty acid profile thing). Butters, in general, don’t lather super well and are filled with unsaponificables. I have had no issues using cocobutter but it’s more expensive for me to buy. Others find cocobutter just doesn’t give them the results they want.

Soap is about balancing the different fatty acid profiles of different oils to get a result that works for you. If you have a chance, there are several sources where people have tested single oil soaps to look at different properties. I know SoapQueen has done one and several members have done their own experiments to get a hands on experience with the findings.

(Beyond all that you have to remember there are people who don’t care about the environment, trust their supple chain, can’t afford alternatives, or have no alternatives available. There are billions of people in the world and just as many reasons why anyone would justify how they chose their ingredients)
 
I use lard or tallow (or mostly both) instead of palm. You absolutely don't need palm to make a good soap. (There are some vegan options as well.)
 
I suppose I'm asking why Palm over coconut or cocoa butter? I know there's issues with the supply of those also, but the scale of the palm oil environmental problems right now far outweighs those. I mainly make coconut/olive oil soap and its just lovely, why is palm still the first choice?

Comparing palm to coconut where soap is concerned is kinda like comparing salt to sugar in a way. While both resemble each other in some ways, they are very different from each other in other ways.......

Both make a hard, white bar, but compared to coconut, palm does not make much in the way of delightful, super fluffy bubbles, but where it lacks in super fluffy bubbles, it makes up for in long-lastingness because of it's unique fatty acid makeup being high in palmitic acid which is less soluble than other fatty acids.

Coconut, on the other hand makes a super bubbly lathering soap, but because of its unique fatty acid makeup, it will not last anywhere near as long as a palm-based soap and it will also be extremely more cleansing than a palm-based bar. The two just do not make good subs for each other at all in soap.

You're getting closer to the right track with cocoa butter (hard, less soluble, no fluffy bubbles), but there are still too many differences to be able to sub it 1:1 for palm: For example, it's much higher in palmitic and stearic acids than palm, which among other issues can lead to brittle soap if subbed 1:1 for palm, not to mention that cocoa butter has its own supply issues that make it way more expensive than palm.

As Shari and Atiz mentioned, lard and/or tallow make great substitutes for palm (a combo of something like 75% lard/25% tallow being closer to palm's fatty acid profile than using one or the other individually).

For a veggie based combo of oils/butters whose fatty acid profile for all intents and purposes is near identical to the fatty acid makeup of palm, you can implement the below formulation in your recipe as a 1:1 stand-in for palm. For what it's worth, over in Zany's recently posted Basic Trinity thread, I gave a step by step explanation of how to actually calculate the below formula on SoapCalc in order to be able to incorporate it into one's recipe as a 1:1 replacement for palm:

Shea butter 45.5% / Cocoa Butter 43% / Sunflower Oil 10% / Coconut Oil 1.5%

Others are using soy wax as a palm replacement, but soy has its production issues as well.

Bottom line, palm-free soaps are certainly quite doable, but whether one chooses to use palm or not is a very personal decision based on many underlining, varying factors, as Battlegnome pointed out. We all have to pick our battles based on our situations and what we are each faced with.


IrishLass :)
 
For me, I’m still exploring options and while I understand the whole Palm oil debacle, i found a supplier that claims is sustainable and local, things I can not really confirm first hand.
And while I would like to ise more shea and cocoa butters, a) they are waaaaaaay too expensive on an already expensive hobbie and b) they dont peform quite the same as pal. Another option is sow wax and I am researching it, but havent done enough already nor have I ordered some to actually know if i can make the switch feom palm. As for tallow thats ofher thing i haven tried but i did try lard and while I like how it performs in soap I am not a fan at all of the smell and I am one of those who can smell the lard even masked with fragrance. So there is that.
 
I'm a soy wax user. It's not very high in palmitic acid, but rather stearic acid, and it brings a hardness and longevity to the soap that previously i was trying to get by using a higher amount of shea butter and also using cocoa butter. Cocoa butter in NZ is about 4 times the price of soy wax, so soy wax it is for me :)
 
In my country it is literally not possible to find certified palm oil. Also other oils including olive are very expensive and difficult to ensure quality. Once a batch went rancid due to the oilve oil I've used. Although coconut oil is freely available, I don't use coconut oil over 25% in general.

Due to the above issues my blend consist of Palm, Coconut and Castor oils at the ratio of 75% : 20% : 5%, this gives me a well balances soap in all the aspects. In addition to this I add glycerin 5% to 10% of weight of the oils. I understand the reasons for avoiding Palm, in search of the fact I've also came across the arguments for palm, which is also i would say made some sense to me.
 
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