- Animal Fats: Mainly beef tallow, mutton tallow, and lard. Soap made from beef and mutton tallow is hard and has strong cleaning power. Although the foaming power is small, the foam is thick and long-lasting. Industrial-grade fats are generally used for soap making. Whiter fats are used for making toilet soap, yellow fats for laundry soap, and poorer quality fats for colored and industrial soap.
- Vegetable Fats: Mainly coconut oil, palm oil, palm kernel oil, cottonseed oil, rice bran oil, wood oil, and cypress oil. Coconut oil is rich in low molecular weight lauric acid glycerides and myristic acid glycerides, making the soap hard, white, water-soluble, and quick-foaming but less durable. Palm kernel oil has similar properties to coconut oil but is less colorful, making it a good raw material for toilet soap. Palm oil is darker and generally used only for laundry soap. Cottonseed oil and rice bran oil contain highly unsaturated fatty acids and are prone to rancidity, generally not used for toilet soap. Cypress oil and wood oil are special products of China. Cypress oil, also known as skin oil, is obtained from the fruit pulp of the cypress tree, with a high fatty acid solidification point, used up to 55% in laundry soap and 25% in toilet soap. Wood oil is obtained by pressing the pulp and seeds of the cypress tree, with a lower fatty acid solidification point and higher iodine value than cypress oil, used up to 95% in laundry soap. Other oils such as peanut oil, tea oil, rapeseed oil, soybean oil, sunflower oil, and corn oil can also be used for soap making.
- Hardened Oils: Unsaturated fats that are hydrogenated under certain temperature and pressure to become more saturated. Liquid fats like whale oil, which are not suitable for direct soap making, can be hardened for use in soap making. Adding an appropriate amount of hardened oil to soap can improve hardness and wear resistance. Excessive hardened oil in toilet soap can cause cracking and mushiness, so the amount must be strictly controlled.
- Rosin: Traditionally used as a fat substitute in China. Generally used in amounts of 15-25% in laundry soap and 2-3% in toilet soap. However, rosin soap has poorer color. Rosin soap has rich foam and good solubility.
- Tall Oil: Also known as wood pulp floating oil, a by-product of the paper industry, containing a large amount of resin acids and fatty acids, suitable for soap making. Crude tall oil is dark and odorous, refined tall oil can be used for soap making.
- Synthetic Fatty Acids: With the development of China’s petroleum industry, paraffin obtained from petroleum refining is oxidized under certain temperature, pressure, and catalyst conditions to obtain fatty acids, used to replace edible animal and vegetable fats for soap production. Under certain economic conditions, it is a good substitute for natural fatty acids.
- Refining Oil Residues: Oil residues after alkali refining. Good color residues can be directly used for soap making; poor color residues need to be further saponified, acidified, and distilled to obtain fatty acids for soap making. These fatty acids are light in color and are good raw materials for laundry soap.
2. Auxiliary Raw Materials: Includes inorganic raw materials and other ingredients.
- Inorganic Raw Materials: Includes alkalis and salts.
- Sodium hydroxide (commonly known as caustic soda or lye) is the main chemical for saponifying fats.
- Potassium hydroxide is used for making soft soap and liquid soap.
- Sodium carbonate (commonly known as soda ash or soda) can neutralize fatty acids or rosin to form soap and is cheaper than caustic soda, often used to neutralize fatty often used to neutralize fatty acids and rosin to reduce costs. Potassium carbonate can replace potassium hydroxide to neutralize fatty acids, or react with lime to produce potassium hydroxide for use. Sodium oxide is an essential salting-out agent in soap making. Soap-grade sodium chloride is industrial salt or salt recovered from the glycerin extraction process from soap waste. Potassium chloride is added in small amounts as an electrolyte in potassium soap making to adjust the viscosity of soft soap. Sodium silicate (commonly known as water glass or soluble glass) is an important auxiliary agent in laundry soap, increasing soap hardness, reducing soap shrinkage, and preventing soap rancidity. It also buffers residual free sodium hydroxide in soap, reducing skin irritation. The amount added depends on the fat formula, about 1% in toilet soap.
- Other Ingredients**: Includes fragrances, colorants, antioxidants, disinfectants, bleaching agents, fatting agents, fluorescent whitening agents, chelating agents, calcium soap dispersants, and carboxymethyl cellulose, added according to the quality and requirements of the soap.
Animal and vegetable fats used in soap making contain mechanical impurities such as oil husks, iron, sand, phospholipids, proteins and their decomposition products, gums, gossypol, carotenoids, and free fatty acids due to oxidation and decomposition during raw material processing, packaging, and storage. If these impurities are not removed, they will affect the appearance, color, and quality of the soap, as well as the color of the waste liquid and refined glycerin. Therefore, animal and vegetable fats used in soap making must be refined.
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