Oils are obtained by pressing of the vegetable or fruit. What is extracted and filtered is what many soapmakers use.  The techniques involved are cold process, solvent process, heat process, and refined process.  Each technique produces different grades of oils as some are used differently for different formulations. Let’s look at the different techniques used.

Cold pressing involves pressing and filtering. As the name implies, no heat is used to extract the oil from the seed. The oil that is produced afterwards is called virgin oil and it’s of the best quality and pricier but quantity is minimum compared to the other processes. Such examples are virgin olive oil and virgin coconut oil.

Heat process involves pressing and filtering of the vegetable/fruit with of course the aid of heat. Results of this process produce oils with a slight variation in color, taste or composition.

Solvent process will produce the highest amount of oil extracted. A solvent is mixed in with the solvent and once the solvent has evaporated the batch will produce oils. Although the quantity of oil produced is greater however, actives such antioxidants or extracts are removed in this process. Actives are key ingredients to have in leave-in body products as the skin can greatly benefit from them.

Refining process alters the composition of the oil by means of bleaching, deodorizing. This process removes properties such as color and odor from the oil.

A great example of oil that goes through the process mentioned above is coconut oil.