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Palm-free

Palm-free classic bar

Three creamy ivory palm-free soap bars beside a small jug of olive oil, a dish of shea butter and a sprig of rosemary on a purple backdrop

Our everyday bar without palm oil: olive, coconut and castor oils, with shea butter doing the hardening palm would have done and high-oleic sunflower oil for a bar that keeps. Scented softly with lavender and rosemary.

Skill
Beginner
Method
Cold process
Batch
1000 g of oils about 1459 g of batter
Hands-on
1 hour
Cure
5 weeks
Gel phase
Either way gel or not, both work
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What you need

For 1000 g of oils, which fills a 1.5 litre loaf mould. Weigh everything, liquids included.

Olive Oil · 40.0 % 400 g 14.11 oz
Coconut Oil · 25.0 % 250 g 8.82 oz
Shea Butter · 20.0 % 200 g 7.05 oz
Castor Oil · 5.0 % 50 g 1.76 oz
Sunflowerseed Oil - High Oleic Acid · 10.0 % 100 g 3.53 oz
Sodium hydroxide (NaOH) · the lye, 100 % pure 138.5 g 4.88 oz
Distilled water · for a 33 % lye solution 275.2 g 9.71 oz
Sodium lactate (60 % solution) · stirred into the lye solution once it has cleared, for a firmer loaf 15 g 0.53 oz
Lavender oil · 2.0 % of the oils, at trace 20 g 0.71 oz
Rosemary oil · 1.0 % of the oils, at trace 10 g 0.35 oz
Superfat
5 %
Temperatures
Oils and lye solution each between 32 and 43 °C (90 and 110 °F)

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Method

  1. 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. Set out a 1.5 litre loaf mould, level, where it can stay for two days.

  2. Weigh the oils

    Weigh 250 g coconut oil and 200 g shea butter into the pot, and 400 g olive oil, 100 g high-oleic sunflower oil and 50 g castor oil into a jug.

  3. Weigh the rest

    Weigh 275.2 g distilled water into a heat-safe lye jug and 138.5 g sodium hydroxide into a small, dry container. Weigh 15 g sodium lactate into a cup, and 20 g lavender oil and 10 g rosemary oil into a small glass.

  4. Make the lye solution

    By an open window, pour the sodium hydroxide slowly into the water, never the water onto the lye, and stir until it runs clear, keeping your face away from the vapour. Stir in the sodium lactate, then leave the jug to cool, labelled and out of reach.

  5. Melt the solid oils

    Melt the coconut oil and shea butter on the lowest heat until just clear, then pour in the olive, sunflower and castor oils, which bring the temperature down.

  6. Check the temperatures

    Go ahead when the oils are clear and both they and the lye solution read between 32 and 43 °C (90 and 110 °F); the two need not match.

  7. Blend to light trace

    Pour the lye solution into the oils down the shaft of the stick blender, then pulse for a few seconds and stir, over and over. With half its oils liquid the batter takes a few minutes to thicken, so keep going until a drizzle leaves a faint line on the surface.

  8. Add the essential oils

    Pour in the lavender and rosemary oils, stir them in with the blender switched off, then give two or three short pulses to spread them through the batter.

  9. Pour and cover

    Pour into the mould, tap it firmly on the worktop to raise air bubbles, and cover it with a lid or board and a folded towel for a day. A warm loaf firms up sooner; if the top starts to crack, take the towel off.

  10. 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.

  11. Unmould and cut

    After 24 to 48 hours, when the loaf is firm to a pressed finger 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 feels soft, give it another day.

  12. Cure for four to six weeks

    Stand the bars on edge in a dry, airy place out of the sun, a finger's width apart, and turn them every few days. They are ready after four weeks, and harder and milder after six.

Tips

  • For a swirl, which needs the batter to stay fluid for longer, set the calculator's water to a 30 % lye concentration. The lye stays the same; the batter thickens more slowly, and the loaf wants an extra day in the mould.
  • The sodium lactate is optional. Leave it out and the bar is the same soap; just give the loaf an extra day in the mould before you unmould it.
  • Refined shea butter makes a whiter bar with no smell of its own; unrefined shea smells faintly nutty. Either works, and the calculator treats them the same.
  • For a first batch, our first-batch palm-free bar is simpler still, with no additions and no scent. Our vegan hard bar takes its hardness from cocoa butter instead of shea, and our classic olive, coconut and palm bar is the palm version of this soap.

Why make it

This is our everyday bar for makers who would rather not use palm oil. Shea butter takes palm's place for hardness, and the bar sits in the middle of every range on our scale, hardness 37, cleansing 17 and conditioning 60: a mild, creamy bar for hands and body that most skin gets on with. High-oleic sunflower oil carries far less linoleic acid than the ordinary kind (Codex), so it is less likely to go rancid over a long cure. People leave palm out because oil palm expansion has driven deforestation in parts of tropical Asia and Latin America and threatens many species there (IUCN). The IUCN also notes that palm gives up to nine times more oil per hectare than other oil crops, so replacing it can move the damage rather than end it. A palm-free bar is a reasonable choice, not a guaranteed good one.

Sources

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 12.3 %
  • Myristic acid 4.7 %
  • Palmitic acid 8.9 %
  • Stearic acid 10.8 %
  • Ricinoleic acid 4.4 %
  • Oleic acid 47.4 %
  • Linoleic acid 7.8 %
  • Other 5.1 %

Saturated : unsaturated 40 : 60

Hardness 37 29–54
Cleansing 17 12–22
Conditioning 60 44–69
Bubbly lather 21 14–46
Creamy lather 24 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

9 variations

The same soap with one thing moved. Each opens in the calculator ready to change again.

From the guides

All guides
Intermediate 10 min read

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.
Beginner 14 min read

Your first cold process soap, step by step

A complete first batch of cold process soap: one simple recipe with exact lye and water for 500 g and 1 kg of oils, and every step from goggles to cure.
Intermediate 14 min read

Scenting soap: essential oils and fragrance oils

How much essential or fragrance oil to use in soap, what ounces per pound mean in percent, the IFRA limits for common essential oils, and EU allergen labelling.

Guides with this recipe

Where these proportions come from

Our own formulation: the olive, coconut and castor of a classic everyday bar, with the hardness palm oil would have given taken from 20 % shea butter instead, and 10 % high-oleic sunflower oil, which keeps better than ordinary sunflower. Sodium lactate at Faiola's teaspoon per pound of oils helps the softer palm-free loaf firm up and leave the mould sooner.

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