Palm oil vs shea butter in soap
Shea butter is the obvious first choice for a palm-free vegan bar. Palm oil’s hardness is palmitic acid and shea’s is stearic, yet in the bar below the two come out within a point of each other for hardness, cleansing, conditioning and lather. Watch the lye: shea takes 8.3 % less, so a swap without recalculating leaves the bar at 3.5 % superfat, and unrefined shea varies widely in its saponification value.
The published figures
| Palm oil | Shea butter | |
|---|---|---|
| Saponification value, mg KOH/g | 190–209 | 179.3–190 (typical 183) |
| Used by the calculator, mg KOH/g | 199.5 (midpoint) | 183.0 (typical) |
| SAP for NaOH, g/g | 0.1422 | 0.1305 |
| Iodine value, g I₂/100 g | 50–55 | 30–75 |
| INS (SAP − IV) | 147 | 131 |
| Melting point, °C | — | 33–40.5 |
| Unsaponifiable matter, % | ≤ 1.2 | 2.4–11.6 (typical 6.2) |
| Name on a soap label | Sodium Palmate | Sodium Shea Butterate |
Each oil alone
| Palm oil | Shea butter | Usual range | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hardness | 50 | 45 | 29–54 |
| Cleansing | 2 | 0 | 12–22 |
| Conditioning | 51 | 54 | 44–69 |
| Bubbly lather | 2 | 0 | 14–46 |
| Creamy lather | 48 | 45 | 16–48 |
A single oil’s hardness, cleansing and the rest are the same sums the calculator shows for a recipe, applied to that one oil. They explain what the oil brings to a blend; they do not predict how a soap of only that oil would feel.
Swapping one for the other
Gram for gram, shea butter takes 8.3 % less lye than palm oil. For a kilogram of oil at a 5 % superfat, that is 135.1 g of sodium hydroxide for palm oil and 123.9 g for shea butter.
In the bar below, where it is 20 % of the oils, weigh the lye for one and put in the other without recalculating, and the superfat moves:
| Lye weighed for | Oil used | Superfat |
|---|---|---|
| Palm oil | Shea butter | 3.5 %recalculate |
| Shea butter | Palm oil | 6.5 %recalculate |
The superfat is the share of the oils the lye leaves unsaponified, planned here at 5 %; below zero, there is more lye than the oils can take. Put the oil you actually have in the lye calculator and it works out the lye for that oil.
The same bar with either
The bar: 20 % of the one or the other, at a 5 % superfat, for 1,000 g of oils. The rest: 50 % olive oil, 25 % coconut oil, and 5 % castor oil.
| With palm oil | With shea butter | Usual range | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sodium hydroxide, g | 140.8 | 138.6 | |
| Hardness | 38 | 37 | 29–54 |
| Cleansing | 17 | 17 | 12–22 |
| Conditioning | 58 | 59 | 44–69 |
| Bubbly lather | 22 | 21 | 14–46 |
| Creamy lather | 25 | 25 | 16–48 |
| Iodine value | 59 | 59 | 41–70 |
| INS | 149 | 146 | 136–165 |
| Linoleic and linolenic acid, % | 9.3 | 8.4 |
Fatty-acid profile
| Fatty acid | Palm oil | Shea butter | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Myristic acid | C14:0 | 1.3 (0.5–2) | 0.0 |
| Palmitic acid | C16:0 | 43.4 (39.3–47.5) | 3.5 (1.9–5) |
| Stearic acid | C18:0 | 4.8 (3.5–6) | 41.7 (27.7–55.7) |
| Oleic acid | C18:1 | 40.0 (36–44) | 47.4 (34–60.7) |
| Linoleic acid | C18:2 | 10.5 (9–12) | 6.2 (4.4–7.9) |
| Arachidic acid | C20:0 | 0.5 (0–1) | 0.9 (0–1.8) |
The figure the calculator uses for each oil, as a percentage of its fatty acids, with the published range in brackets.
Recipes with palm oil
- Piped soap cupcakes 60 % of the oils
- Classic olive, coconut and palm bar 30 % of the oils
- Everyday bar, the usual three 30 % of the oils
- Apricot seed scrub bar 25 % of the oils
- Everyday bar, gentler 25 % of the oils
- Gardener's pumice scrub bar 25 % of the oils
Recipes with shea butter
- 100 % butter bar 60 % of the oils
- African black soap homage 30 % of the oils
- Charcoal pencil line bar 30 % of the oils
- Shea and cocoa butter luxury bar 30 % of the oils
- Butter bar 25 % of the oils
- Goat milk and shea hot process bar 25 % of the oils
Guides
Other comparisons
Where these numbers come from
Palm Oil
Verbatim mirror of the FAO file CXS_210e.pdf; the official FAO link (https://www.fao.org/fao-who-codexalimentarius/sh-proxy/en/?lnk=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fworkspace.fao.org%2Fsites%2Fcodex%2FStandards%2FCXS%2B210-1999%2FCXS_210e.pdf) was Cloudflare-gated at retrieval. Table 1 (Section 3.1) = mandatory GLC fatty-acid ranges, % of total fatty acids, ND = not detectable (<=0.05%). Table 2 (Appendix 'Other quality and composition factors') gives saponification value, iodine value (Wijs) and unsaponifiable matter of CRUDE oils; the Appendix is explicitly ADVISORY (a product not meeting it may still conform). This print predates the 2021-2025 amendments; the 2024 additions (avocado, camellia seed, sacha inchi, high-oleic soya bean) are not included.
Shea Butter
Table 5 (GLC fatty-acid composition of 36 individual shea nut samples) and Results sections 3.2 (NSL/non-saponifiable lipid content, Table 2) and 3.5 (fatty-acid prose ranges) supplied the fattyAcidsPercent and unsaponifiablePercent fields.
Standard for 'Shea butter (Unrefined)': iodine value 30-75, saponification value 160-200 (used for those two fields), unsaponifiable matter not more than 19%, free fatty acids not more than 8%, refractive index 1.4620-1.4650 at 44 C. Item inserted by 2019 amendment, gazetted 2021.
Table 4: traditional wet-extracted butter (SBT) SAP 167.4 mg KOH/g, iodine 21.43 gI2/100g, melting point 33.0 C; solvent-extracted butter (SBS) SAP 202.9 mg KOH/g, iodine 13.19 gI2/100g, melting point 40.5 C. Nigerian samples. Melting-point figures used for the field; its iodine values were treated as an outlier and not used (see notes).
Ivory Coast beige/yellow shea butter: iodine 52.64/53.06 gI2/100g (corroborates the FSSAI-sourced field). Its unsaponifiable matter (17.61%/17.27%) and fatty acids (palmitic 16.42%/26.36%, stearic 32.39%/36.36%, oleic 38.12%/29.09%, linoleic 9.72%/5.92%, arachidic 1.84%/1.59%) were NOT used - inconsistent with Akihisa et al.'s much larger 36-sample dataset, recorded here only for transparency.
Internet Archive capture (3 August 2025) of the FAO file. Table 2: relative density (20 C) 0.91-0.98, density (40 C) 0.89-0.93, saponification value 160-195 mg KOH/g fat, iodine value 30-75, unsaponifiable matter 1-19 % m/m, refractive index at 44 C 1.4620-1.4650, melting point 35-40 C. Table 3: lauric <1, myristic <0.7, palmitic 2-10, palmitoleic <0.3, stearic 25-50, oleic 32-62, linoleic 1-11, linolenic <1, C20:0 <3.5 %. The standard says its limits are broad because they cover shea from all production areas. Regulatory limits, recorded in notes rather than as the band.
Crude Ghanaian shea fat: saponification value 190.0, iodine value 64.2, unsaponifiable 9.0 %, palmitic 4.8, stearic 45.9 %. Sets the maximum.