Sodium olivate is the salt of olive oil. Soap is made when you saponify oils and fats with sodium hydroxide. There is no sodium hydroxide left after the chemical process, just the sodium salt. We use olive and coconut oils in our soap base, instead of palm oil. This does make them more expensive to produce, but we believe that palm oil is an extremely unsustainable ingredient (yes, even the 'sustainably' certified stuff) and we won't use it!