Teach Soap

Hi

I am just working on a new recipe and would like to use a good amount of shea butter...could someone please tell me what the highest percentage of shea butter I could use? I am also using olive oil, coconut oil, palm and castor.

If I wanted to make a palm oil free soap, could I substitute palm oil for shea butter?

Many thanks in advance

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Ange

You can substitute shea butter for palm as long as you recalculate everything. You may also need to up your coconut a bit to help with the hardness, it just depends on how much coconut & palm you're using. I don't use palm & never have so I don't know how hard palm soaps get.

Most people use about 5-15%, but honestly you could use however much you want. I've heard of soapers using up to 60% & even in the Single Oil Swap experiment, they used 100% and it didn't turn into that bad of a bar of soap. http://www.zensoaps.com/singleoil.htm

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Genny

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Ange

I stopped using palm - now I just use either lard or tallow instead. The qualities are almost identical and the bars are nice and hard.

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Linda
I know the voices in my head aren't real, but they sure have some great ideas!

I do not use palm in any of my recipes nor do I use lard or tallow. I use olive, coconut, and avocado in all of my recipes and occasionally add shea butter at no more than 5% or I find the soap is soft and less bubbly. My basic bars with just olive, coconut, and avocado are wonderful. They last a long time (with proper usage and drainage) and are super bubbly!

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Haven

I currently use palm oil, but will be switching back to lard once I'm done this bucket. Melting and stirring and re-packaging palm is just too much work! I'll keep some on hand for vegetarian soaps, but will be switching to lard again for most of my soaps.

I also find shea butter reduces lather and softens the soap at anything over 5%. It can also increase acceleration too!

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~~Heather~~
Mad [soaping] Scientist

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Ange

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Ange

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Ange