Everyday bar, gentler
The usual olive, coconut and palm bar made milder: less coconut oil, more olive oil, a little castor oil for creamy lather and a 6 % superfat. Unscented, it suits hands that are washed all day and anyone who finds the 40/30/30 bar drying.
- Skill
- Beginner
- Method
- Cold process
- Batch
- 1000 g of oils about 1417 g of batter
- Hands-on
- 1 hour
- Cure
- 6 weeks
- Gel phase
- Either way gel or not, both work
What you need
For 1000 g of oils, which fills a 1.5 litre loaf mould. Weigh everything, liquids included.
| Olive Oil · 50.0 % | 500 g | 17.64 oz |
| Coconut Oil · 20.0 % | 200 g | 7.05 oz |
| Palm Oil · 25.0 % | 250 g | 8.82 oz |
| Castor Oil · 5.0 % | 50 g | 1.76 oz |
| Sodium hydroxide (NaOH) · the lye, 100 % pure | 137.5 g | 4.85 oz |
| Distilled water · for a 33 % lye solution | 279.1 g | 9.84 oz |
- Superfat
- 6 %
- Temperatures
- Oils and lye solution each between 35 and 43 °C (95 and 110 °F)
Method
-
Get ready
Put on splash goggles, nitrile gloves and long sleeves, open a window or turn on the extractor fan, and keep children and pets out of the room. Line the mould and set it where it can stay level for two days. -
Melt and stir the palm oil
Warm the whole tub of palm oil until it is liquid and stir it well before weighing any, since it separates as it stands. -
Weigh the oils
Weigh 250 g palm oil and 200 g coconut oil into the pot, and 500 g olive oil and 50 g castor oil into a jug. Stir the jug so the thick castor oil does not sit at the bottom. -
Make the lye solution
Weigh 279.1 g distilled water into a heat-safe jug and 137.5 g sodium hydroxide into a small dry container. In a well-ventilated spot, pour the lye slowly into the water, never the water onto the lye, and stir until clear. Leave it to cool, labelled and out of reach. -
Melt the hard oils
Melt the palm and coconut oils together on low heat until clear, then pour in the olive and castor oils. -
Check the temperatures
Carry on when the oils are clear and both they and the lye solution are between 35 and 43 °C (95 and 110 °F); the two need not match. -
Combine
Pour the lye solution into the oils down the shaft of the stick blender, tap the blender on the bottom of the pot to let trapped air out, and keep the blade under the surface while it runs. -
Blend to light trace
Pulse for a few seconds and stir, over and over. With half the oils liquid the batter thickens gently, usually in three to six minutes; stop when a drizzle leaves a faint line on the surface. -
Pour and cover
Pour into the mould, tap it on the worktop to raise air bubbles, and cover it with a lid or board and a folded towel. It may gel and turn dark and glossy in the middle for a few hours, which is fine either way. -
Clean up with your gloves on
Wipe the raw batter off the pot and tools with paper towels into the bin, then wash everything in hot soapy water. -
Unmould and cut
After 24 to 48 hours, when the loaf is firm to a pressed finger, unmould it with gloves on and cut it into bars about 2.5 cm (1 in) thick. -
Cure
Stand the bars on edge in a dry, airy room for six weeks, turning them every few days. The extra olive oil makes a bar that keeps hardening and getting milder for weeks after it is usable.
Tips
- Set a bar of this beside one of Everyday bar, the usual three: the main change is 10 % of the oils moved from coconut to olive and castor, and it is the easiest way to feel what the cleansing number means. For milder still and palm-free, see Unscented baby bar.
- To scent it, stir 20 to 30 g of lavender essential oil into the batter at light trace. Nothing else changes, since the lye is worked out on the oils alone.
- Buy palm oil certified by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), or use one of this recipe's variants, which put tallow, lard or shea butter in its place with the lye worked out again.
The oils
| Oil | Share |
|---|---|
| Olive Oil (virgin / refined / olive oil) | 50.0 % |
| Coconut Oil | 20.0 % |
| Palm Oil | 25.0 % |
| Castor Oil | 5.0 % |
How it is made
| Process | Cold process |
| Alkali | NaOH |
| Superfat | 6 % |
| Water | lye water at 33 % |
| Iodine value | 61 |
| INS | 144 |
Why make it
Cutting the coconut oil to 20 % and raising the olive oil to half the blend takes the cleansing number from 21 to 14 on our scale, while a little castor oil keeps the lather creamy. That makes this a bar for people who wash their hands many times a day, or who find ordinary soap leaves their skin feeling tight. It is unscented on purpose: dermatologists advise people with dry, sensitive skin to wash with a gentle cleanser and avoid fragrance (American Academy of Dermatology). No soap is a treatment, and anyone with a skin condition should follow their own doctor's advice. The price of the extra olive oil is a slightly softer bar, which needs its full six weeks to harden and lasts longer on a dish that drains.
Sources
- Dermatologists' top tips for relieving dry skin · American Academy of Dermatology, 2026
What tradition, makers' experience and research say about soaps like this, each labelled for what it is. It is not medical advice, and no soap treats a skin condition: if you have one, ask a doctor or pharmacist.
What the numbers say
- Lauric acid 9.9 %
- Myristic acid 4.1 %
- Palmitic acid 19.6 %
- Stearic acid 3.3 %
- Ricinoleic acid 4.4 %
- Oleic acid 46.2 %
- Linoleic acid 9.3 %
- Other 4.5 %
Saturated : unsaturated 39 : 61
Computed from the fatty acids of the fats above. The bands are what the craft has settled on, not chemistry — a bar outside one is not wrong.
Try it differently
20 variationsThe same soap with one thing moved. Each opens in the calculator ready to change again.
- Edible Tallow (beef/mutton dripping) instead of Palm Oil
- Lard (pure rendered pork fat) instead of Palm Oil
- Shea Butter instead of Palm Oil
- Kokum Butter instead of Palm Oil
- Cocoa Butter (Theobroma Oil) instead of Palm Oil
- Mango Butter instead of Palm Oil
- 5 % superfat
- 8 % superfat
- Edible Tallow (beef/mutton dripping) instead of Palm Oil and 5 % superfat
- Edible Tallow (beef/mutton dripping) instead of Palm Oil and 8 % superfat
- Lard (pure rendered pork fat) instead of Palm Oil and 5 % superfat
- Lard (pure rendered pork fat) instead of Palm Oil and 8 % superfat
- Shea Butter instead of Palm Oil and 5 % superfat
- Shea Butter instead of Palm Oil and 8 % superfat
- Kokum Butter instead of Palm Oil and 5 % superfat
- Kokum Butter instead of Palm Oil and 8 % superfat
- Cocoa Butter (Theobroma Oil) instead of Palm Oil and 5 % superfat
- Cocoa Butter (Theobroma Oil) instead of Palm Oil and 8 % superfat
- Mango Butter instead of Palm Oil and 5 % superfat
- Mango Butter instead of Palm Oil and 8 % superfat
From the guides
All guides
Superfat and lye discount: why recipes leave some oil unsaponified
What superfat and lye discount mean, how the calculator applies them, where makers set them for each soap, and why oil added at trace isn't the oil left over.
Fatty acids and soap qualities: what the numbers mean
The eight fatty acids behind how a bar behaves, how the five quality numbers are summed from them, where the usual ranges came from and when to ignore them.
Palm-free soap: what takes palm oil's place
What palm oil does in a bar of soap, why makers drop it, and how lard, tallow, shea, cocoa, kokum or stearic acid take its place, with worked palm-free recipes.
Guides with this recipe
Where these proportions come from
Our own construction: the usual olive, coconut and palm three with coconut oil dropped to 20 %, the change most often made when the 40/30/30 bar feels drying, castor oil added at 5 % to win back some lather, and a 6 % superfat.