Formula · Olive-led
Three-Oil Starter Bar
A 1 kg beginner batch built from olive, coconut, palm and a splash of castor. Light trace, one colour, no swirl to get wrong. This is the recipe to make before you make anything else.
RRecipe card
| Oil | Share | SAP |
|---|---|---|
| Olive Oil | 45 % | 0.134 |
| Coconut Oil (76 °F) | 25 % | 0.183 |
| Palm Oil | 25 % | 0.141 |
| Castor Oil | 5 % | 0.129 |
| Oil bill | 1 % | 140.3 |
| NaOH to weigh | 141.8 g | NaOH @ 99 % |
|---|---|---|
| Water to weigh | 330 g | 2.35 : 1 |
| Superfat | 5 % | Lye concentration 29.8 % |
| Yield | 9 × 163.5 g | Cure 4 weeks |
Reference bands follow the usual cold-process targets; the marker turns orange when a figure sits outside its band.
TTechnique notes
Why these four oils
Olive at 45 % keeps the bar mild and gives you time to work — it is the slowest oil in the library to reach trace. Coconut at 25 % supplies the big bubbles, and palm at 25 % supplies the hardness that stops the bar denting in a wet dish. Castor at 5 % is not there for its fatty acid profile so much as for ricinoleic acid's effect on lather: it makes the foam stand up instead of collapsing.
Push coconut past 30 % and the same bar starts to feel tight on the skin within a minute of washing. Push olive past 60 % and you get the castile problem: gorgeous after four months, disappointing at four weeks.
What the numbers come out at
For a 1000 g oil bill at 5 % superfat and water at 33 % of the oils, the charge is 66.4 g of NaOH and 330 g of water. That is a lye concentration of about 16.9 %, which is on the forgiving side: a slow, cool trace rather than a fast one.
Hardness lands around 41, bubbly around 23 and conditioning around 48, so all three markers sit inside their reference bands. INS is about 154 — high enough for a hard, long-lasting bar without the brittleness of a tallow-heavy recipe.
The one thing beginners get wrong
Temperature, not the recipe. If the lye solution is at 50 °C and the oils are at 30 °C, the batch can trace in forty seconds and you will be spooning it into the mould. Wait for both to sit within five degrees of each other at 38–42 °C. It costs fifteen minutes and saves the batch.
Add at trace
- 30 g kaolin clay, dispersed in 60 g of the water before the lye goes in
- 3 % fragrance oil by oil weight, added at light trace
Equipment
- Digital scale reading to 0.1 g, 2 kg capacity
- Stick blender with a stainless shaft
- 2 L heatproof jug for the lye solution, 3 L bowl for the oils
- Silicone loaf mould, 1.1 kg capacity
- Infrared thermometer or a probe that reads to 60 °C
When it goes wrong
- White chalky film on the top face
- Soda ash. The batch gelled too slowly and unreacted lye met airborne CO₂. Soap at a slightly heavier trace, cover the mould, and spritz the top with isopropyl alcohol.
- The loaf never hardened enough to unmould
- Almost always a lye miscalculation or a scale that drifted. Recheck the charge against the calculator; if the numbers are right, your palm was partly replaced by a soft oil and the water ratio is too high.
MMix
- Weigh the four oils into the 3 L bowl: 450 g olive, 250 g coconut, 250 g palm, 50 g castor. Melt the palm over a water bath and stir until no solid fat remains.
- Weigh 128.3 g of distilled water into the 2 L jug. Put on goggles and gloves, then weigh 66.4 g of sodium hydroxide and add it to the water — never the other way round. Stir until the liquid clears.
- Leave both jugs until they sit at 38–42 °C. If the lye is hotter than the oils, the batch can seize around the fragrance; if it is colder, you get false trace.
- Disperse 30 g of kaolin clay in 60 g of the water you already weighed, and stir it into the oils.
- Pour the lye solution through a strainer into the oils and pulse the stick blender for 5-second bursts, stirring between pulses.
- Stop at light trace: lift the blender and let it drip. The trail should sit on the surface for about two seconds before it sinks back in.
- Add 30 g of fragrance oil, stir it in by hand for 20 seconds, and pour into the mould from one corner so you do not fold air in.
CCut
- Leave the mould insulated with a towel for 24 hours, then uncover it. The loaf will still be warm in the middle, which is normal — it is the gel phase finishing.
- Unmould at 24–36 hours. If the silicone peels away from the sides cleanly, it is ready; if it tears, give it another 12 hours.
- Cut at 48 hours with a flat blade, wiping the blade between cuts. A 1.1 kg batch cuts into nine bars of about 115 g.
CCure
- Stand the bars on edge with 2 cm gaps in a dry room at 18–22 °C, out of direct sun. Turn them once a week.
- Four weeks is the minimum. At week four the bar will lather well but still wear down fast; at week eight it lasts noticeably longer in a wet dish.
- Write the date and the batch number on a slip of paper and keep it with the bars. If a white film appears, it is soda ash, not mould — it wipes off with a damp cloth.
What matters here
- 45 / 25 / 25 / 5 olive-coconut-palm-castor is the reference point every later recipe is measured against.
- 38–42 °C for both jugs, within five degrees of each other.
- Light trace means the drip sits on the surface for about two seconds.
- Four weeks minimum cure; eight is where the bar starts to feel expensive.
Questions that come up
- Can I leave the palm out?
- Yes, but replace it with something hard rather than with more olive. Use 25 % shea butter or 20 % cocoa butter and you keep most of the hardness; use more olive and the four-week bar will be soft enough to bend.
- I do not have a stick blender. Will a whisk work?
- It will, and it will take 30–50 minutes of continuous stirring to reach trace instead of four. If you go that route, keep the oils and lye at the low end of the range (38 °C) to buy yourself working time.
- How do I know the lye is the right strength?
- You do not need to test it. Weigh it on a scale that reads to 0.1 g and trust the arithmetic — 66.4 g is 66.4 g. pH strips on a finished bar only tell you the soap has stopped being caustic, which a four-week cure guarantees anyway.
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 — nothing here treats or prevents a skin condition, and a bar that suits one person can irritate another.