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As a soapmaker, I used beef tallow as a primary ingredient for a long time. More recently, trying not to use animal-derived products led me to try palm oil, as

As a soapmaker, I used beef tallow as a primary ingredient for a long time. More recently, trying not to use animal-derived products led me to try palm oil, as it's a nearly perfect substitute for tallow. The properties of palm oil are ideal for soapmaking, as well as many other products. Palm oil is one of those wonder ingredients that are useful in so many ways, and I truly hope we can find a way to make its cultivation more sustainable. For now, it's most important to know where your ingredients are sourced and the local impacts of harvesting them.

Robotbeat 7y ago
What about hydrogenated vegetable oil?
- robgibbons 7y ago
  It's certainly used in soap, but I've never tried it. From what I understand it's often derived from soybean oil. Each type of oil/fat has a unique fatty acid profile that contributes different qualities to the product after saponification. Palm oil has a uniquely high palmitic and oleic acid content, both of which provide very desirable qualities to the end product.
  - fuzzfactor 7y ago
    Raw agricultural oils have a limited number of unsaturated chemical bonds between some of the atoms in their carbon chain structure. These carbons are available for reaction with alkalies such as lye, which saponifiy each pair of target carbons by adding a molecule of water H_O_H. H_ to one carbon, _OH to the adjoining carbon. The properties of the resulting material, soap, are not very similar to the original oil, it is quite water soluble by comparison, and capable of easily emulsifying regular oil & grease as expected for water rinsability. If the raw oil is instead reacted with hydrogen gas, one _H goes to each reactive carbon and the molecule after that point is referred to as being saturated with hydrogen. That's why they call it hydrogenated vegetable oil. Things like Crisco which are solid at room temperature and able to cook at high heat because they are hydrogenated, even though the raw oil they are made from is light and does not even solidify under refrigeration. The lye is not very reactive with vegetable oil that is already saturated (plain mineral oil is saturated naturally). The heavier fractions or varieties of palm oils can be solids at various room temperatures, and under refigeration the heavier waxes from olive oil often separate from the lighter fractions readily. But both of these waxy fractions are solid naturally just because they have a higher melting point, there has been no hydrogenation and the raw solid oil when melted can be reacted with lye as fully as raw light fractions can.
hef19898 7y ago
You are raising a very interesting point, so. I assume you sourced your tallow locally, right? So the question is what's more sustainable. Palm oil from another continent or locally sourced tallow from farmers supplying meat locally as well. And I have no idea what the answer is, only that it is an incredibly hard question.
- akiselev 7y ago
  I assume that at the scale palm oil is used, the size of an animal industry capable of providing enough tallow would surely be far more unsustainable. The fattier animals that produce tallow in large quantities have a trophic efficiency of 1/5 or 1/6 so for every pound of animal mass they consume 5-6 pounds of plant food. That's a lot of calories wasted just chewing cud.
  - thfuran 7y ago
    I though cattle were more like 1/10.
    - akiselev 7y ago
      10% is the average-ish trophic efficiency in the wild. In industrialized farming we have optimized feed, antibiotic growth promotion, and lack of exercise that brings that down to 1/6 or so for cattle
  - ip26 7y ago
    The confounding variable is that the cows would have been produced anyway for food, so using leftover tallow, bone, etc is ecologically virtuous
    - firethief 7y ago
      Unless you pay for it. The cows are produced for money. Muscle meat is one of the most lucrative products, but demand for any part of the cow incentivizes more cows. It's possible that it would still be ecologically the lesser evil because the market value is low and what you might choose as an alternative isn't necessarily better, but it's not so clear cut as you make it sound.
poulsbohemian 7y ago
Honest question: Why not use olive oil? Since it has been used in soap making for centuries, I'm curious why you prefer palm oil or beef tallow over what to my amateur thinking is an ideal renewable option.
- robgibbons 7y ago
  Olive oil (pomace) is one of the ingredients I use in formulations. Olive oil is very moisturizing, but doesn't lather at all, and it renders a very soft bar of soap. Tallow and palm are both hard, stable lather-building ingredients. In short, olive oil and palm oil are not really comparable. They would both be best used in some combination to yield a product with both moisturizing and lathering qualities.
  - montalbano 7y ago
    I've been using this 100% olive oil (fat-wise) soap for several years, it doesn't lather quite as well as other soaps i've used but it does the job well enough: https://www.hollandandbarrett.com/shop/product/oliva-pure-olive-oil-soap-60038772 https://www.hollandandbarrett.com/shop/product/oliva-pure-ol...
    - robgibbons 7y ago
      Traditionally, castile soap is 100% olive-oil based. It's often sold as liquid soap, to eliminate any disadvantages of the softness that olive oil gives to solid bar soap.
    - pengaru 7y ago
      I'll have to give that a try, I used to use the Kiss My Face 100% olive oil bars before they shut down and were acquired, now their products are awful. I've been using this [0] as a replacement which has been good but the Laurel blend seems to dry my skin more than the straight olive oil KMF bars did. [0] https://www.amazon.com/Aleppo-Soap-Hand-made-All-Natural-12-Bar/dp/B07FD189NT https://www.amazon.com/Aleppo-Soap-Hand-made-All-Natural-12-...
  - 7y ago
vsajip 7y ago
Coconut oil works very well for soaps. You can get great great results with it. I've tried (as a hobbyist maker) red palm oil and coconut oil and I found the latter much preferable. Coconut oil costs more, of course.
- robgibbons 7y ago
  I use it as well in most of my formulations. It yields a high lather and is very cleansing (almost too cleansing -- it's often described as very "drying".) It's best used along with olive oil, to get a simultaneously cleansing + moisturizing bar.
  - jblwps 7y ago
    So aside from the additional cost, is there any catch in using it instead of palm oil or tallow, provided you balance it out with a moisturizer like olive oil?
    - robgibbons 7y ago
      You might get away with just those two, but it would probably yield a very soft bar. A soft bar typically takes longer to cure (be ready to use/sell) and doesn't last as long once it's being used. In my experience coconut oil, like olive oil, would still need to be mixed with a harder fat like palm or tallow, or hard butters, like cocoa butter. It is on the soft side of oils. The "old reliable" recipe mixes these three in equal parts: Coconut, Olive, Tallow. Each of them imparts a quality that the others lack. Coconut = cleansing, Olive = moisturizing, Tallow/Palm = Hardness, stability
stevenwoo 7y ago
Did you watch the Seven Worlds, One Planet episode on Asia? For anyone who is wondering how to source sustainable palm oil, there are some links to investigate oneself https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1Wbwgx6HCMbF8SrnSTMt08b/palm-oil-how-you-can-save-asia-s-jungles https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1Wbwgx6HCMbF8SrnST...
moonlet 7y ago
Palm oil is not sustainable, period. It’s either being grown on plantations where forest used to be or more plantations are being cut out of the jungle to meet growing demand.

Robotbeat 7y ago

What about hydrogenated vegetable oil?

robgibbons 7y ago
It's certainly used in soap, but I've never tried it. From what I understand it's often derived from soybean oil. Each type of oil/fat has a unique fatty acid profile that contributes different qualities to the product after saponification. Palm oil has a uniquely high palmitic and oleic acid content, both of which provide very desirable qualities to the end product.
- fuzzfactor 7y ago
  Raw agricultural oils have a limited number of unsaturated chemical bonds between some of the atoms in their carbon chain structure. These carbons are available for reaction with alkalies such as lye, which saponifiy each pair of target carbons by adding a molecule of water H_O_H. H_ to one carbon, _OH to the adjoining carbon. The properties of the resulting material, soap, are not very similar to the original oil, it is quite water soluble by comparison, and capable of easily emulsifying regular oil & grease as expected for water rinsability. If the raw oil is instead reacted with hydrogen gas, one _H goes to each reactive carbon and the molecule after that point is referred to as being saturated with hydrogen. That's why they call it hydrogenated vegetable oil. Things like Crisco which are solid at room temperature and able to cook at high heat because they are hydrogenated, even though the raw oil they are made from is light and does not even solidify under refrigeration. The lye is not very reactive with vegetable oil that is already saturated (plain mineral oil is saturated naturally). The heavier fractions or varieties of palm oils can be solids at various room temperatures, and under refigeration the heavier waxes from olive oil often separate from the lighter fractions readily. But both of these waxy fractions are solid naturally just because they have a higher melting point, there has been no hydrogenation and the raw solid oil when melted can be reacted with lye as fully as raw light fractions can.

hef19898 7y ago

You are raising a very interesting point, so. I assume you sourced your tallow locally, right? So the question is what's more sustainable. Palm oil from another continent or locally sourced tallow from farmers supplying meat locally as well. And I have no idea what the answer is, only that it is an incredibly hard question.

akiselev 7y ago
I assume that at the scale palm oil is used, the size of an animal industry capable of providing enough tallow would surely be far more unsustainable. The fattier animals that produce tallow in large quantities have a trophic efficiency of 1/5 or 1/6 so for every pound of animal mass they consume 5-6 pounds of plant food. That's a lot of calories wasted just chewing cud.
- thfuran 7y ago
  I though cattle were more like 1/10.
  - akiselev 7y ago
    10% is the average-ish trophic efficiency in the wild. In industrialized farming we have optimized feed, antibiotic growth promotion, and lack of exercise that brings that down to 1/6 or so for cattle
- ip26 7y ago
  The confounding variable is that the cows would have been produced anyway for food, so using leftover tallow, bone, etc is ecologically virtuous
  - firethief 7y ago
    Unless you pay for it. The cows are produced for money. Muscle meat is one of the most lucrative products, but demand for any part of the cow incentivizes more cows. It's possible that it would still be ecologically the lesser evil because the market value is low and what you might choose as an alternative isn't necessarily better, but it's not so clear cut as you make it sound.

poulsbohemian 7y ago

Honest question: Why not use olive oil? Since it has been used in soap making for centuries, I'm curious why you prefer palm oil or beef tallow over what to my amateur thinking is an ideal renewable option.

robgibbons 7y ago
Olive oil (pomace) is one of the ingredients I use in formulations. Olive oil is very moisturizing, but doesn't lather at all, and it renders a very soft bar of soap. Tallow and palm are both hard, stable lather-building ingredients. In short, olive oil and palm oil are not really comparable. They would both be best used in some combination to yield a product with both moisturizing and lathering qualities.
- montalbano 7y ago
  I've been using this 100% olive oil (fat-wise) soap for several years, it doesn't lather quite as well as other soaps i've used but it does the job well enough: https://www.hollandandbarrett.com/shop/product/oliva-pure-olive-oil-soap-60038772 https://www.hollandandbarrett.com/shop/product/oliva-pure-ol...
  - robgibbons 7y ago
    Traditionally, castile soap is 100% olive-oil based. It's often sold as liquid soap, to eliminate any disadvantages of the softness that olive oil gives to solid bar soap.
  - pengaru 7y ago
    I'll have to give that a try, I used to use the Kiss My Face 100% olive oil bars before they shut down and were acquired, now their products are awful. I've been using this [0] as a replacement which has been good but the Laurel blend seems to dry my skin more than the straight olive oil KMF bars did. [0] https://www.amazon.com/Aleppo-Soap-Hand-made-All-Natural-12-Bar/dp/B07FD189NT https://www.amazon.com/Aleppo-Soap-Hand-made-All-Natural-12-...
- 7y ago

vsajip 7y ago

Coconut oil works very well for soaps. You can get great great results with it. I've tried (as a hobbyist maker) red palm oil and coconut oil and I found the latter much preferable. Coconut oil costs more, of course.

robgibbons 7y ago
I use it as well in most of my formulations. It yields a high lather and is very cleansing (almost too cleansing -- it's often described as very "drying".) It's best used along with olive oil, to get a simultaneously cleansing + moisturizing bar.
- jblwps 7y ago
  So aside from the additional cost, is there any catch in using it instead of palm oil or tallow, provided you balance it out with a moisturizer like olive oil?
  - robgibbons 7y ago
    You might get away with just those two, but it would probably yield a very soft bar. A soft bar typically takes longer to cure (be ready to use/sell) and doesn't last as long once it's being used. In my experience coconut oil, like olive oil, would still need to be mixed with a harder fat like palm or tallow, or hard butters, like cocoa butter. It is on the soft side of oils. The "old reliable" recipe mixes these three in equal parts: Coconut, Olive, Tallow. Each of them imparts a quality that the others lack. Coconut = cleansing, Olive = moisturizing, Tallow/Palm = Hardness, stability

stevenwoo 7y ago

Did you watch the Seven Worlds, One Planet episode on Asia? For anyone who is wondering how to source sustainable palm oil, there are some links to investigate oneself https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1Wbwgx6HCMbF8SrnSTMt08b/palm-oil-how-you-can-save-asia-s-jungles https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1Wbwgx6HCMbF8SrnST...

moonlet 7y ago

Palm oil is not sustainable, period. It’s either being grown on plantations where forest used to be or more plantations are being cut out of the jungle to meet growing demand.