The round-number olive, coconut and palm bar that most soapmakers start from, made plain: no scent, no colour, nothing but the three oils. Hard and quick to lather, it is the reference the rest of the everyday recipes are measured against.
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. Palm oil separates as it stands, and a scoop from the top is softer than one from the bottom.
Weigh the oils
Weigh 300 g palm oil and 300 g coconut oil into the pot, and 400 g olive oil into a jug.
Make the lye solution
Weigh 292.6 g distilled water into a heat-safe jug and 144.1 g sodium hydroxide into a small dry container. At the best-ventilated spot you have, 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 oil.
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). Cooler than that, the palm starts to set and thickens the batter before it has really traced.
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, stir with the blender off, and repeat. Palm and coconut oils bring trace on fairly quickly, often within two to four minutes; stop at light trace, when a drizzle leaves a faint line on the surface.
Pour and insulate
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 for 24 hours. A loaf that gels all the way through firms up sooner and is less prone to a white bloom of soda ash on top.
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 and has pulled away from the sides, unmould it with gloves on and cut it into bars about 2.5 cm (1 in) thick. If it still dents easily, give it another day first.
Cure
Stand the bars on edge in a dry, airy room for four to six weeks, turning them every few days. They are ready after four weeks, and harder and milder after six.
Tips
If it feels drying, drop the coconut oil to 20 %, the usual next move: Everyday bar, gentler does that and adds castor oil. For the same three oils with castor oil and lavender added, see Classic olive, coconut and palm bar.
A white, powdery film on the top is soda ash. It is harmless: plane it off with a vegetable peeler or steam it away after a week.
Tallow, lard or shea butter can take the palm oil's place, but each takes its own amount of lye. Use one of this recipe's variants, or swap the oil in the calculator and weigh its figures. For a palm-free bar designed from scratch, see Palm-free classic bar.
This is the blend most beginners meet first: olive oil for mildness, coconut oil for lather and palm oil for a hard bar, in round numbers. Soapmaking books still teach close relatives of it first; Letcavage and Harden's basic three-oil soap is almost the same. On our scale it reads cleansing 21 and hardness 45, a firm bar with a quick lather that suits normal to oily skin and a family soap dish, though it can feel a little drying on dry skin in winter. Oil palm expansion is a major driver of deforestation in parts of the tropics (IUCN), so buy certified palm oil or make one of this recipe's palm-free variants. It is a reference as much as a recipe: many makers change it after a batch or two, starting with less coconut oil.
Sources
Natural Soap Making, by Elizabeth Letcavage and Melissa Harden · Stackpole Books, 2013
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 14.8 %
Myristic acid 6.1 %
Palmitic acid 21.2 %
Stearic acid 3.4 %
Oleic acid 41.9 %
Linoleic acid 8.6 %
Other 5.7 %
Saturated : unsaturated 49 : 51
Hardness
45 29–54
Cleansing
21 12–22
Conditioning
51 44–69
Bubbly lather
21 14–46
Creamy lather
25 16–48
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
110 variations
The same soap with one thing moved. Each opens in the calculator ready to change again.
The 40/30/30 olive, coconut and palm blend is the most widely repeated beginner formulation in the craft; it is a convention, not a standard. The lye is dissolved as a 33 % solution.
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