Teach Soap

I'm new to soapmaking, actually just made my first batch this weekend! So far, it turned out fantastic!
But...I really want to make a soap that my whole family can use, mainly my husband. He is allergic to coconuts. It's so bad I think he can look at a coconut and break out! Unfortunately, all of the recipes I've found has coconut oil, pretty discouraging. I have found a pure olive oil recipe, but I think that would be too soft of a bar? Maybe.. not sure. So I thought I would ask the experts! Does anyone know any recipes without coconut oil?

Any advice is appreciated!

You can sub out coconut oil with Palm Kernel Oil. I made a coconut free soap that was lovely this way. The recipie I used was
50% Olive
20% Palm
20% Palm Kernel
10% Shea

with a 7% SF

You can make an all olive bar and it will be very soft at first but others say It hardens to a brick but needs at least a 6 month cure to be at its best. I have not made one yet as I am not that patient but I do make liquid castile soap and it is very nice.

This is the site where i get my "starter" recipes, which I then tweak until I like them:
http://www.millersoap.com/soapallveg.html

here's a recipe from that page:
All-Vegetable, No Coconut or Palm
56 ounces olive oil
30 ounces vegetable shortening
9 ounces castor oil
12 ounces lye crystals
28 ounces cold water
2 T. salt dissolved in a small amount of hot water and added to lye solution
The salt was felt to be an important part of this recipe, although I imagine you'd have nice, but softer soap without it. I would keep it in unless you try it that way and don't like it as well as soap without the salt.

That's her All Veg page. She also has a page for soaps with animal fats and one for "castile" recipes, which she defines as being mostly olive oil.

IMO, a long gel stage can really speed up castile soap. Also, you can add some castor oil to boost bubbles and/or some cocoa butter or shea butter for a little extra hardness.

Coconut oil is so wildly popular b/c it boosts bubbles, cleaning power AND hardness.

Thanks for the replies! I will be sure to try these!

Depending on where you get your soap making oils from you could also exchange the coconut oil for babassu oil. It is a little more expensive but I love this oil. Just be sure that with any change in a recipe you run it through one of the soap calc's. Best of luck in your future batches!

_________________
Susie
Sometimes A Mistake is so much fun, You just have to do it again!

You can also sub babasu for the coconut oil. Just recalculate and run it through soap calc.

_________________
Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

Be careful, Kari, because many people who are allergic to coconut are also allergic to palm oil. Try it, but also try other things. I'd go with a pure Castile bar, myself (though I'm biased, since that's almost all of what I do, other than one batch over a year ago).