Palm-Free Shea Butter Bar
By The Soap Brain Team — Cold-process soap makers & formulators
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About this recipe
Plenty of makers prefer to skip palm oil for sourcing reasons, and shea butter is the classic way to get the hardness and creamy feel back without it. Here shea and coconut do the structural work — shea for a firm, conditioning bar and coconut for hardness and bubbly lather — while olive keeps it mild and sweet almond adds a silky skin-feel. Castor lifts the lather so a palm-free bar does not go flat.
The slightly higher 6% superfat suits the richer, butter-forward blend and keeps it gentle. As always, the numbers below are computed live from our cited SAP values for your exact batch — shea's saponification value differs from palm's, so never reuse a palm recipe's lye weight when you swap in butter. Cure this one a solid 4–6 weeks for the hardest, longest-lasting result.
The oils
Percentages for a 1,000 g batch of oils. Change the batch size in the calculator and every weight — and the lye — recomputes.
| Oil | Percentage | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Olive oil | 45% | 450 g |
| Coconut oil, 76°F | 25% | 250 g |
| Shea butter | 20% | 200 g |
| Castor oil | 5% | 50 g |
| Sweet almond oil | 5% | 50 g |
| Total oils | 100% | 1,000 g |
Method
- Gear up with goggles, gloves and long sleeves; ventilate the room. Everything is weighed, never measured by volume.
- Melt the coconut oil and shea butter together, then stir in the olive, sweet almond and castor.
- Bring the blend to roughly 40°C.
- Weigh the water, then weigh the lye using the calculator figure below.
- Add the lye to the water, dissolve fully, and let it cool to about 40°C.
- Blend oils and lye to a medium trace; the butters will thicken it up.
- Mould, insulate lightly, unmould after 1–2 days, cut and cure 4–6 weeks.
Calculate the lye for this recipe
The calculator below is pre-loaded with this recipe. Resize it to your batch or mould and it works out the exact NaOH (lye) weight, water and quality numbers. Always weigh lye, oils and water — never measure by volume, wear gloves and eye protection, and add lye to water (never the reverse).
Loading the calculator…
Where these numbers come from
The lye weight and quality numbers here come from the same cited oil values you'll find on every oil page. Here's the sourcing for each oil in this recipe:
SAP data last updated · 51 oils covered.
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- SoapCalc oil list — SAP, iodine
- From Nature With Love — Saponification Chart — SAP range
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- Codex Alimentarius CXS 210-1999 — Named Vegetable Oils (Tables 1–2) — SAP 248–265 mg KOH/g; Table 1 C8:0 4.6–10.0 and C10:0 5.0–8.0 — the ~12% our eight acids cannot carry
- SoapCalc oil list — SAP, iodine
- From Nature With Love — Saponification Chart — SAP range
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- SoapCalc oil list — SAP, iodine
- From Nature With Love — Saponification Chart — SAP range
- 7VIRIDES — Soap Making Oils Encyclopedia — SAP + fatty-acid profile
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- FAO/WHO JECFA — Castor oil monograph (INS 1503) — SAP 176–185 mg KOH/g, iodine 83–88
- SoapCalc oil list — SAP, iodine
- Wikipedia — Ricinoleic acid — fatty-acid profile
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- SoapCalc oil list — SAP, iodine
- From Nature With Love — Saponification Chart — SAP range
Recipe FAQ
- Do I have to use the exact weights shown for Palm-Free Shea Butter Bar?
- No. This recipe is defined by percentages, so you can scale it to any batch size. Enter your total oil weight (or size it to your mould) in the calculator and it recomputes the exact lye, water and quality numbers for you.
- What superfat and water amount does this recipe use?
- It uses a 6% superfat with a 33% lye concentration. You can change either in the calculator below and watch the lye weight update instantly.
- Can I swap an oil or leave one out?
- You can, but every oil has its own saponification (SAP) value, so the lye weight changes with it. Never reuse this recipe's lye figure with a different oil blend — edit the oils in the calculator and let it recalculate the lye from scratch.