Formula · Coconut-led
Palm-Free Vegan Everyday Bar
Palm oil is the easiest way to put stearic and palmitic acid into a bar, and it is not the only way. Shea butter does the job at 20 %, with rice bran standing in for some of the olive.
RRecipe card
| Oil | Share | SAP |
|---|---|---|
| Olive Oil | 4 % | 0.134 |
| Coconut Oil (76 °F) | 25 % | 0.183 |
| Shea Butter | 2 % | 0.128 |
| Rice Bran Oil | 1 % | 0.128 |
| Castor Oil | 5 % | 0.129 |
| Oil bill | 1 % | 135.5 |
| NaOH to weigh | 136.9 g | NaOH @ 99 % |
|---|---|---|
| Water to weigh | 320 g | 2.36 : 1 |
| Superfat | 6 % | Lye concentration 29.8 % |
| Yield | 9 × 161.9 g | Cure 6 weeks |
Reference bands follow the usual cold-process targets; the marker turns orange when a figure sits outside its band.
TTechnique notes
What replaces the palm
Palm brings 44 % palmitic and 5 % stearic acid, which is why it turns up in so many recipes: those two saturated fats are what make a bar hard and long-lasting. Shea butter brings 40 % stearic and cocoa butter 33 %, so either can take palm's place if you use enough of it and accept that both accelerate trace.
At 20 % shea, hardness comes to about 36 — inside the 29–54 band, but near the bottom of it. That is a genuinely different bar from a palm recipe: it will feel softer for the first three weeks and it will wear a little faster in the shower. What it gains is a lather that feels creamier, because the unsaponifiables in shea stay in the bar.
Why rice bran instead of more olive
Rice bran oil is chemically close to olive — high oleic, moderate linoleic — and costs about a third as much. It brings 22 % palmitic acid into the blend, which is more than olive's 14 %, so it actually helps the hardness number slightly.
The trade is colour. Rice bran carries pigments that oxidise slowly, so the bars drift to cream. Most people find that pleasant. If you want a white bar, use sunflower or more olive instead and accept a softer loaf.
Superfat and the vegan question
Six percent is a good place for this blend. The shea and rice bran both carry unsaponifiables, so the effective superfat is a little higher than the number suggests, and the bar is not drying even at 25 % coconut.
Everything in this recipe is plant-derived. If you are making it for someone who avoids animal products, the sodium lactate and the essential oil are the two ingredients to check — both are usually synthetic or plant-derived, but read the label.
Add at trace
- 2 % sweet orange essential oil, added at light trace
- 1 tsp sodium lactate per 500 g of oil, for a harder bar out of the mould
Equipment
- Digital scale to 0.1 g
- Stick blender
- 1.1 kg loaf mould
- Thermometer
When it goes wrong
- The loaf is soft and dents when you press it at day three
- No palm means no palmitic acid scaffolding. Either wait, or add 1 tsp of sodium lactate per 500 g of oil and try 2 % beeswax next time.
- Fine white streaks through the cut face
- Shea that did not fully melt and re-solidified in the oils. Melt it completely on its own before adding it, and stir until the oil is clear.
MMix
- Weigh 400 g olive, 250 g coconut, 200 g shea, 100 g rice bran, 50 g castor. Melt the shea gently and let it cool back to 38 °C before it meets the lye.
- Weigh 320 g water and add 65.9 g NaOH.
- Bring the oils to 38 °C and the lye to 38 °C. Shea is the impatient ingredient here; the closer the two are, the more working time you have.
- If you are using sodium lactate, stir it into the water before the lye goes in — it is far easier to disperse there.
- Pour the lye into the oils and pulse the blender in 3-second bursts, stirring between. Rice bran and shea together will thicken faster than the olive percentage suggests.
- At light trace, add the essential oil by hand, stir 20 seconds, and pour.
CCut
- Insulate for 24 hours. This recipe gels reliably — you will see the middle go translucent within six hours.
- Unmould at 24–36 hours and cut at 48 hours. Nine bars at about 117 g.
- Because there is no palm, the bars are slightly less crisp at the edges than a palm recipe. Cut with a wire cutter rather than a knife and they stay clean.
CCure
- Six weeks. The first two weeks it is noticeably soft — that is the 20 % shea plus no palm. It firms up quickly between week three and week five.
- Rice bran oil discolours slightly: the bars will drift from near-white to a pale cream over the cure. That is expected, not rancidity. Rancidity smells like crayons and shows as orange spots, not as an even colour shift.
What matters here
- 20 % shea replaces palm's stearic acid; hardness lands near 36, the low end of the 29–54 band.
- Rice bran is roughly olive oil at a third of the price, with a cream tint as the trade.
- Keep both jugs at 38 °C — shea accelerates trace above 40 °C.
- Sodium lactate goes into the water before the lye, not into the oils.
Questions that come up
- Do I need sodium lactate?
- No. It makes the loaf harder at 24 hours, which makes unmoulding easier and reduces the chance of dents. Without it you simply wait an extra day or two.
- Can I use cocoa butter instead of shea?
- Yes, at 15 % rather than 20 %, because cocoa butter is harder and more brittle. Melt it fully and keep the oils at 36 °C — cocoa accelerates trace more than shea does.
- Why did my bars turn cream?
- Rice bran oil. It oxidises slowly and the pigments shift from pale yellow to cream over four to eight weeks. It is cosmetic. Rancidity is a different thing: an orange spot in the middle of a bar, with a crayon smell.
Next on the bench
Cold-process soap is made with sodium hydroxide: goggles, gloves and ventilation, and keep the batch away from children and animals. This recipe is information, not medical advice — a plant-derived bar is not inherently gentler than any other.