# Replacement for Palm Oil



## Blackbird (Jan 11, 2013)

Alright, in honor of those chimps...
Does anyone know of an oil that works very similar to palm kernel so I can pretty much replacement it entirely in my recipe? 
My basic recipe contains palm kernel, coconut, olive & castor. Everyone seems to enjoy it, so I don't want to replace it entirely..

Has anyone used just coconut, olive and castor??

Suggestions? Thoughts?


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

Merle, if you aren't going to replace it entirely, what is the difference between a little bit of palm, or a lot  It's still on your label.

There is an excellent soap calculator that tells you the conditioning, moisturizing, hardness of your recipe, tweak it with other butters and oils you can purchase until you duplicate it. Palm is used because it's cheap, not because it is superior to cocoa butters or shea. My customers took the rise in price because of free trade Shea and using no palm oils, in stride, if anything my business picked up with this little bit of education I got off facebook. My customers shamed me into paying attention. Vicki


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## Blackbird (Jan 11, 2013)

Oh, by 'pretty much replace it entirely' I mean an oil that I can substitute the exact amount without figuring an entirely new recipe. The one I have is engrained.. Creature of habit, as they say. And let's be honest. I'm lazy and hate to take risks. 

Do you have a link for the calc? I must warn you all, I'll probably be back asking for help on how to use it properly and what it all means.. Math is not my strong suit. It took me what feels like ages to work out the recipe I have now, as simple as it is.


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

soapcalc.net it has directions, but really it is easier to just play with it. Put your old recipe in and print it out since you like it. Then play with the palm and replace it with other butters and oils and see if you can match the same qualities. Vicki


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## smithurmonds (Jan 20, 2011)

I don't use palm oil and I don't find my bars to be too soft once they cure.


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## MF-Alpines (Mar 29, 2010)

How about lard or tallow?


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## hsmomof4 (Oct 31, 2008)

Yes, if you (and your customers) have no objection to them, either lard or tallow would be a perfect substitute for palm. Run through a lye calculator anyway, but as far as the soap goes, you would only see improvement. (Can you tell that I love lard and tallow in soap?)

But you wrote "palm kernel" in your actual post, and not palm. They are not the same. If subbing for palm kernel, I would use coconut.


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## todog (Dec 10, 2011)

i dont use palm oil and i use coconut oil, olive oil, and castor oil as my shampoo/shave bar. the coconut oil will make a hard bar. here is how my recipe looks 24 oz. coconut oil , 24 oz. castor oil and 38 oz. olive oil. then of course there is the goat milk and lye and eo. or fo if added. hope this helps. i do know coconut oil can be drying but my shampoo bars are just right.


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

Anyone interested in sharing the values of our recipes on soapcalc.net?


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## swgoats (May 21, 2010)

I invented a great recipe with olive, castor and coconut. Unfortunately, I lost it. I'd have to reinvent it now. That combo worked really well.


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## MF-Alpines (Mar 29, 2010)

Vicki McGaugh Tx Nubians said:


> Anyone interested in sharing the values of our recipes on soapcalc.net?


Values? You mean like the data that you get from a soap calc? Or how "we" like it? Can you be more specific?


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## pinnaclehills (Aug 26, 2009)

Here is a palm free recipe, that u can use to help tweak your recipe.
4lbs: 36.5 oz Olive oil
15.3 Coconut oil
2 oz. Sweet almond oil
7.58 oz Lye
17.8 oz. goat milk or liquid.
Mix 4 teas of table salt with warm water and add to your mixed oils/lye. If you use color mix it in the sw almond oil then add to mixture. 
The salt will harden the soap. The high % of olive makes a very nice soap for soft skin. Yields about 79oz.
www.pinnaclehillsgoatfarm.com. Nigerian Dwarf Goats


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## smithurmonds (Jan 20, 2011)

Here are the values (according to soapcalc) of the base recipe I've made most recently (Olive oil, high oleic sunflower oil, coconut oil, shea butter):

Hardness: 35
Cleansing: 20
Conditioning: 60
Bubbly: 20
Creamy: 15
Iodine: 59
INS: 152

I did increase my lye concentration in order to get a harder bar by 4 weeks. I've been happy with it so far, although I'd like to bring the hardness up just a bit more. I also do an "almost castille" bar that has proven really popular. It is 80% OO and 20% CO. No real issues with hardness there either.


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## Blackbird (Jan 11, 2013)

Thanks for the replies everyone.
Sadly I have some buyers who not only care about chimps (Or I guess orangutans really) but they also cares about cows and pigs etc. So tallow is off the list. 
I do have a couple of ideas from reading the replies though, so thank you all. Won't be for a while yet as I have several contains of palm kernel to go through...


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## hsmomof4 (Oct 31, 2008)

Again, if you are replacing PALM KERNEL oil, and not PALM oil, you will find that using more coconut or something like babassu oil (which is more expensive) is going to give you the most similar bar to what you have now. Palm oil is most like lard and tallow, but it is NOT the same thing as palm KERNEL oil.


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

Stacy what does palm kernel oil come from?


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## Anita Martin (Dec 26, 2007)

I have been using the olive/rice bran blend from soapers choice and like it, plus rice bran is great as far as label appeal I believe! The only palm I've ever used was 7 pounds I bought when I first started soaping 6 years ago or so. I use a lot of soft oils plus the coconut. I use a lot of canola oil because I got hundreds of pounds for free, and my bars are hard and lathery. I personally replaced the hard oils in my soap recipe (lard or palm) with soft oils and it worked out. I still use a good portion of coconut oil, and just love cocoa butter and shea butter too when I can get it. Never have missed the palm. With coconut and olive oil as your base, how about just adding in other oils as you go?


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## hsmomof4 (Oct 31, 2008)

Vicki, it comes from palm, obviously, but that wasn't my point. It has a very different fatty acid profile (PKO is heavy on lauric and myristic fatty acids, very similar to coconut oil and babassu) than plain palm oil (which is heavy on palmitic) so it behaves differently in soap, more like coconut than like lard or tallow. I was not saying that it isn't an environmental issue, I was saying that if she wanted to replace it with something that was similar, lard and tallow are not what she would want to replace it with. Yes, a hard oil/butter will give you hardness in your bar that you get with PKO, but not the bubbles that you get with PKO.


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## Blackbird (Jan 11, 2013)

Thanks Anita!
Stacey, maybe I should have put 'Palm Kernel' in the title instead? Hopefully it gives others who are doing the same thing ideas, whether they use palm, palm fruit, or palm kernel. 
And I guess I'd better specify that I'm a guy before everyone believes otherwise.


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## tmfinley (Feb 21, 2008)

Okay, so you are wanting to replace Palm Kernel Oil? Easy = Coconut oil. Palm oil is a little more complex.


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