One of main the types of ingredients you will need is carrier oils for soap-making. The most commonly used carrier oils in soap making are Olive Oil, Coconut Oil and Palm Oil, but these oils are not your only choices.
The More Common Carrier Oils
Olive Oil is an extremely versatile oil and when used in soap has very good moisturising properties. This oil has quite a long shelf life of six months to a year provided it is stored properly. I use Olive Oil in most of my soap recipes as it is readily available – you can buy it at any supermarket – and usually quite a bit cheaper than the other commonly used oils.
Coconut Oil is cold-pressed from the flesh of the coconut and is generally not refined. It is white or off-white in colour and although it has a very faint coconut fragrance is usually considered to be an odourless oil. The oil is solid at room temperature and needs to be heated slightly to be used for making soap. Coconut oil has a shelf life for this oil is around six months.
Although coconut oil is not usually available at your supermarket in its pure form you can use Cophra as a substitute, provided you adjust the amount of lye in your recipe.
Palm Oil is cold pressed from the fruit of a palm tree. Palm oil is relatively high in saturated fats (like coconut oil) and thus semi-solid at room temperature. This oil has a slightly reddish colour and like olive oil, it has a long shelf life of between six months and a year.
Although palm oil is edible, its most common use these days is for making soap or similar products so it is unlikely that you will find this oil in the supermarket.
Other Oils Used for Soap-making
Below you will find a list of the other carrier oils that you can use when you are making your soap. Some of them may be available at your local supermarket, but most will not.
If you can find any of these oils in your supermarket I suggest you buy them locally as if you source them from a soap supplies store you can expect to pay much more for them!
- Almond Sweet Virgin
- Amazonian Nut
- Apricot Kernel
- Avocado Virgin
- Blackcurrant
- Borage
- Boysenberry
- Camellia
- Canola
- Castor
- Cherry Kernel
- Corn
- Cottonseed
- Cucumber
- Drumstick
- Evening Primrose
- Flaxseed
- Grapeseed
- Hazelnut
- Hefau
- Hemp Seed
- Jojoba
- Kiwifruit Seed
- Kukui Nut
- Linseed
- Macadamia
- Marula Oil
- Neem
- Oat
- Passionfruit
- Peach Kernel
- Peanut
- Pecan
- Pistachio
- Pomegranate
- Poppy Seed Oil
- Pumpkin Seed
- Rice Bran
- Rosehip
- Safflower
- Seabuckthorn
- Sesame
- Soya Bean
- Sunflower
- Tamanu Oil
- Walnut
- Watermelon
- Wheatgerm Virgin
