Like choosing the ingredients in any recipe, choosing the oils in your soap recipes is a very important step in your soap making. Each oil imparts different qualities to the final soap - creating your soap recipe is the art of balancing them to create the perfect bar of soap. Here is a list of the most common soap making oils and the qualities they will give to your soap recipes.
Rice Bran Oil
A few years ago, there was a spike in the price of olive oil. Soap makers across the country scrambled to find more affordable alternatives for their soap. Rice bran oil came to the rescue. Expressed from the husks of rice, most soap makers found that rice bran oil imparted nearly the same creamy, moisturizing qualities that olive oil did to their soaps, but at a lower price. It does have a lot of the same antioxidants and vitamins that olive has, and a similar fatty acid make up. I like it in both bar and liquid soaps. The only disadvantage of rice bran oil is its short shelf life - (6 months or so.)Safflower Oil
Its fairly short shelf life, and fairly unremarkable fatty acid makeup, have made safflower oil pretty neglected in soap making recipes. If you have it on hand, you can certainly use it in your recipes like you would soybean, canola or sunflower - at 5-15% or so. In soap, it is mild and moisturizing.Sesame Seed Oil
Like neem oil, sesame oil has a characteristic scent that must be dealt with if used in a high percentage in your soap. In your soap recipes, sesame oil will be moisturizing and conditioning. It is high in antioxidants and vitamins, so it's also nice in lotions, balms, massage bars and massage oils.Shea Oil
Shea oil, or liquid shea, is fractionated shea butter, one of the most popular luxury oils used in soap making recipes. This variation of shea butter is liquid at room temperature and wonderful for adding to melt and pour soap, massage bars, or to creams and lotions. I've also used it in bath bombs. It's very moisturizing in the tub, but may be a bit too oily for some folks. But the fact that it's liquid doesn't give any benefits in soap. So if you're going to use shea butter in soap, go ahead and use the actual shea butter instead of liquid shea oil.Soybean Oil, Liquid
Soybean oil, like canola, safflower and sunflower, is often used as a portion of a soap making recipe in combination with other "core" oils like coconut, olive and palm. It's pretty unremarkable, but if you have it on hand, use it 5-15% of your soap recipe. It is mild, moisturizing and gives a low, creamy lather. Because soybean oil is so readily available and economical, many cost-conscious soap makers will use soybean as a part of their soap recipes to reduce the overall cost of their soap batches.Soybean Oil Shortening
Soybean oil, in its hydrogenated form is generally called vegetable shortening & sold under generic names, or the brand Crisco. Shortening is usually a blend of soybean & cottonseed oil, and makes nice soap. Like all soap making oils, except olive, it's not a great oil to use alone, but combining it with olive & coconut makes a good, stable, bubbly, moisturizing bar of soap.All of the soap recipes in Sandy Maine's book, "The Soap Book" are made with 44% vegetable shortening (Crisco), 28% coconut and 28% olive oil. If it's good enough for Sandy Maine (of SunFeather Natural Soap Company), it must be pretty good. (Note: Her book was published before the controversy over cottonseed oil arose though. (See above.) She may have reconsidered.)
