Palm oil

by Zene Kaye
(South Africa)

Hi Cathy
Hope you are well!! I need your advice on palm oil. I have noticed when using solid palm oil in my soap recipes that there appear to be very fine particles in the soap. Is this normal? Do you get differant grades of palm oil. Most of the suppliers i ordered palm oil from always supply the white solid one-labelled soap making.
When the soap is halfway used i see the very fine particles in the soap. Do you also experience palm oil to be like this?

Thank you always for sharing your expertise with me!

Yours in Soapmaking

Zene Kaye
(South Africa)

Answer:

One thing it could be is that the palm oil hasn't been seperated from the palm plant very well and has bits of fiber in it...to fix this you would have to heat up the oil and strain it through a fine fabric...panty hose would be ideal or cheese cloth.

Something else it could be is that sometimes the palmitic acid in the palm oil will seperate and solidify out of the palm oil. The acid looks like little roundish balls of a hard off-white substance.

This isn't an unusual occurance but it is a nuisence. You will have to heat up your palm oil until it is completely clear and then proceed with the soap making process.

Some people will heat up the entire bucket of oil making it clear and then gently stirring it while it cools. This leaves you with a creamy product to start working with....this is helpful if you are making soap using the room temperature method.

Hope that helps,
Cathy