When I decided to make soap, I tried a lot of different recipes, with a lot of different oils. I discovered that the differences in oils could be broken down to these three traits:

Lather: The type of oil has a major effect on lather, coconut oil is the prime oil for lather, lathering even in salt water.

Skin kindly: this rather elusive trait is attributed to a number of oils, olive oil being one of the most kindly.

Bar hardness: Palm oil is the favored oil for hardness, but Coconut oil works almost as well and is a higher quality oil. I found that it was very hard to tell the difference between my two oil soap and a five oil soap. Using only two oils allowed me to use the very best oils. Our coconut oil is expeller extracted organic. Avona, and Kosher certified. It’s the same stuff you buy in the health food for $4 a pint.

The olive oil is first press virgin oil, produced by the Calaveras Olive Oil Company in Copperopiis, Calaveras county. Our lotions are made with the same high quality oils. After much research I discovered that the same oils that were used for soap could be used for lotions. The mango and shea butters are highly valued as skin nutrients so we added them to our olive and coconut oils. The resulting lotions and body butters are everything we expected them to be.

They can be used for hand and skin cream. They have been found useful for dry skin and eczema. They even make a nice massage oil.