Need help with Recipe for a Cheap Soap to Donate

[patka]

I am visiting in Europe and I need help with a recipe for soap for a nonprofit organization. They need about 1000 vegan soaps as economical as possible. I normally use a recipe with 50% olive oil, 25% palm and 25% coconut with good results, or I add some nice butters if I want to make a luxury soap. The challenge here is that some of the above oils are not available here or are too expensive. Olive oil is available though not cheap, but coconut is not available for any reasonable price. They do have very cheap refined sunflower and rapeseed oils, I can also add olive oil and I may be able to get some palm fat. Does anyone have a suggestion for a recipe for a reasonably bubbly bar without using coconut oil, what can be substituted for it and can sunflower oil be used perhaps instead of olive oil? I would welcome any suggestions. Of course I would test a few small batches before I would attempt to make the quantity they need.

Thanks so much!

[katshe]

first I would need to know what oils you can get

palm kernal can be used in place of coconut

you could do a castile - 100% olive oil if you have time for the curing, you could add a tbl sugar per lb of soap to you water before you add lye for more bubblage

I do a gentle soap and add sugar but also add honey to it at trace.

I am not sure about using sunflower in place of oo...I would only go 10% sunflower as DOS may be a problem at a higher amount

Ricebran oil is what most use in place of oo

hth

[patka]

Katshe,

Thank you for the the reply. There is a very limited supply of tropical oils in this country (Czech Republic). I don't think palm kernel oil is available. To make a 100% OO would be very costly. I need to figure out something else. I can do 50% OO, then 25% palm (if I can get it) and I just need to find some other oil to add. Sorry to hear sunflower would develop DOS. What about sesame? I think that one could be found here. Thank you for any suggestions.

[Ruina]

I'm fairly new at soapmaking but from all I've read & studied, you'll need at least one of the 3 cleansing oils in any soap recipe (except for castile). They're coconut, palm kernal or babassu.

[katshe]

I think sesame would work

Not sure if you have considered using a type of shortening /

...it can be an all vegi shortening instead of using palm..could be cheaper way to go

[CareBear]

I use sunflower quite often at 20% with no DOS. You can use lard or tallow - those are very stable if properly refined.

[cindym]

Can you get veggie shortening or soy shortening.

[patka]

I use sunflower quite often at 20% with no DOS. You can use lard or tallow - those are very stable if properly refined.

Carebear, I need a vegan soap. But I might try a bit of sunflower oil. Thanks for the info.

[patka]

Can you get veggie shortening or soy shortening.

They have different kinds of veggie shortening, but I don't know how I would put that in the soap calculator, since it is a mix of oils, usually.

[katshe]

Check ingredients on the shortening you can get and on soap calc has crisco

My can of crisco says soybean and cottonseed oil

[patka]

Thank you all for your kind advice. I found out there is some kind of shortening for chocolate making that has both palm and coconut oils. I am trying to find out the proportions of each in the mixture, but it seems this could be what I need to make a decent soap. I may try 50% of this shortening, 40% of OO and 10% of sunflower oil to help bring the price down a little. Now I need to find a bulk source of essential oils, because what they have here is in tiny bottles of something like 1/2 oz for about $8 (that was peppermint oil). I will post a separate thread to see if someone knows a supplier in central Europe. Thanks so much to all of you.:smiley2:

[Sharon in KY]

I am visiting in Europe and I need help with a recipe for soap for a nonprofit organization. They need about 1000 vegan soaps as economical as possible. I normally use a recipe with 50% olive oil, 25% palm and 25% coconut with good results, or I add some nice butters if I want to make a luxury soap. The challenge here is that some of the above oils are not available here or are too expensive. Olive oil is available though not cheap, but coconut is not available for any reasonable price. They do have very cheap refined sunflower and rapeseed oils, I can also add olive oil and I may be able to get some palm fat. Does anyone have a suggestion for a recipe for a reasonably bubbly bar without using coconut oil, what can be substituted for it and can sunflower oil be used perhaps instead of olive oil? I would welcome any suggestions. Of course I would test a few small batches before I would attempt to make the quantity they need.

Thanks so much!

wrong thread