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Palm free stearic
Does anyone know of a source for palm-free stearic, perhaps from hydrogenated rapeseed or soy oil? Any help will be appreciated.
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7 Replies
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I think you can get that from petroleum. :smiley:
Sorry, I don’t know of any from rapeseed or soy oil.
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Palm oil, coconut oil, or tallow/lard (beef/pork fat). There aren’t any other choices, sorry - it’s just too cheap and easy to get it from Palm. I’m not sure you can even get any petroleum-derived fatty acids.
There’s a high percentage of Stearic Acid in Cocoa Butter, but I’d bet money that no one will ever use it for that - Cocoa Butter is way too expensive.
PETA forced the cosmetic/personal care industry to reject animal by-products, and the “natural” crowd demanded vegetable-based alternatives, but no synthetics, all of which led to wide spread cultivation of palm and coconut. Sorry about the environmental destruction, but folks have brought it upon themselves. It’s still amazing to me that folks will still eat a good steak, but then turn around and refuse to buy soap made from tallow.
Your only choice, if you can’t use animal by products, will be to use a different fatty acid. The anti-palm movement just isn’t strong enough for raw material makers to care yet.
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I have to say, I experimented with non-palm soap recipes for years. Finally I gave up. Nothing I produced was anywhere near as good as what I make with 40% palm oil.
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Belassi, is your soap at all crumbly using 40% by mass, of palm oil?
Is it palm KERNEL oil or just palm oil you’re using?
I was told by a woman demonstrating soap-making, that OVER 6% palm oil will make the soap crumbly. I have no idea if that’s true or not.
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Palm oil. No, it doesn’t go crumbly. You were given incorrect information. But I do reduce it to 30% if I am using a fragrance that accelerates trace too much.
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Belassi, You might want to try hot process soap-making (?). That way you can reduce the amount of fragrance you need
AND there’s no issue with trace acceleration because you add fragrances when the soap is finished its cooking. I use a slow cooker to do this. From the point at which I pour in the lye solution to the point the pH is around 9 is approx. 1 1/2 hours - 2 hours. This would vary depending on your soap recipe I guess. I just stick with 2 recipes because they work for me and I like use up the lard I’ve rendered from the pig we buy each year.
The drawback is that the soap is like a thick paste when it’s ready to go into the molds, when the pH has come down to around 9 after an hour or so of cooking. You cannot use cute molds. I just use ABS tubes for my molds & the soap gets pushed into the tubes, then pushed out with a wooden plunger we made.You don’t need to have them ‘cure’ for 6 weeks or so like the cold process soap-making requires. I do leave them out for 3 weeks though, but only to harden as water evaporates….the house smells like spearmint or lavender or oranges
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Thanks for that. I have tried hot process but I don’t much like the texture and appearance compared with cold process. I admit cold process can be a real pain at times. Fortunately it is only a small part of our product range, it’s nice to have it on display as it’s colourful and smells good.
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