Soap: Olive and Coconut Oils
September 3rd, 2006
I decided to start with olive oil, because I had a bunch of it, it was relatively cheap (especially for the lower grades–you get no benefit from extra-virgin in soap; I just used it because I had it around), and it makes a classic soap.
You’ll frequently see people advertising “Castile” soap. This comes from the days when Castilian soapmakers had a lot more olive oil than they did tallow (the standard soapmaking fat in those days), and figured out that they could make some very mild, high-quality soap with it. These days, people add all sorts of other stuff, but all castile soaps are based on olive oil.
Olive oil’s saponification number is 0.134, so the recipe will be:
100 g olive oil
38 g water
13.4 g lye.
My scale only reads down to 1 gram precision, so I stuck with 13 grams to avoid having too much lye in the soap. I measured out ingredients in a beaker from Ingvar Kamprad Scientific Supply.
After a few minutes, I decided to call it. It looked a little thicker, and that’s about all you can hope for with 100% olive.
I poured it into the ice-cube tray I had waiting. The soap was the color of mustard, which shouldn’t have been all that surprising, but the resemblance was striking.
My next victim was the anti-olive oil: coconut.
| Olive oil | Coconut oil |
| Makes very soft soap | Makes very hard soap |
| Soap is skin-friendly | Soap dries out skin |
| Soap lathers very little | Soap is very sudsy |
| 14% saturated fat | 86% saturated fat (!) |
| Supposed to be healthy for you (Mediterranean diet, antioxidants, etc.) | Will leap out of jar and jam your aorta like the 101 during rush hour if provoked |
| Liquid at room temperature | Solid at room temperature, and actually forms largish crystals to boot |
Here’s a picture of the end of the jar, showing the crystals:
And yes, it was much harder. It was almost a slurry when I poured it out of the blender, and I didn’t run it for nearly as long. Oh, ingredients:
100 g coconut oil
38 g water
19 g lye (saponification number 0.190)
Here’s what the liquid coconut oil looked like after I stuck it in the microwave for a while:
And here’s the final product. The olive-oil soap was a little darker, but not quite as dark as it looks in this picture. The coconut-oil soap looks like it’s at least firm in this shot, and it is. It sets up very hard, and very fast:
Prior: Background.
Next: Mixed oils, walnut, and more!
Entry Filed under: Making Things,Soap
10 Comments Add your own
1. EuroFar | September 3rd, 2006 at 13:25
Finally! The much anticipated soap results begin.
I take the OO soap, thank you very much.
2. Lauren | September 3rd, 2006 at 14:08
So all you have to do is mix the lye, oil, and water in a blender?
Keep the posts coming! Can’t wait to see the rest of the results.
3. tellumo | September 3rd, 2006 at 14:51
EuroFar: yeah, I think that’s what’s going to turn out the best.
Lauren: That’s it! I’ll give a little more information in future posts.
4. knd | September 3rd, 2006 at 17:44
Adam-
Since you use an ordinary blender and everyday ice cube trays, I started to wonder…are Adam’s Margaritas really sudsy? Just kidding of course, I imagine soap making cleanup is a breeze, I mean after all…it is soap!
5. tellumo | September 3rd, 2006 at 18:34
:D
I solve this problem by serving margaritas on the rocks, instead of blended. Also, I solve it by not having any tequila around. :-)
6. Adam Engelhart » So&hellip | October 2nd, 2007 at 21:00
[...] Prior: Olive and coconut oils. [...]
7. Adam Engelhart » So&hellip | October 2nd, 2007 at 22:57
[...] also checked in on the other soaps. The olive oil soap was surprisingly hard at this point. The walnut was softer, but it had set up [...]
8. jennifer | September 14th, 2008 at 5:31
hey… i just want to know if how long or how many days to take just to make that soap? does it takes a month?.. please answer ‘coz i need it for our project if you don’t mind.. thanks,
9. tellumo | September 14th, 2008 at 13:31
Oh, no, it takes about half an hour at most. However, if it comes out softer than you’d like, it’ll firm up in a week or two.
What’s your project about?
10. Charles | September 25th, 2009 at 23:12
If you add a little oatmeal to that if would be perfect, my wife loves all those fancy soaps but I will also admit that I’m a fan too. This will be a good project for us to do together
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