MWF and others shave soaps

A couple of members have expressed an interest in Mitchells woolfat type shaving soaps, so here's a thread to share recipes and the results of our soap making shenanigans. To start here's a list of the ingredients of MWF:

Sodium Tallowate, Potassium Stearate, Sodium Cocoate, Sodium Stearate, Aqua, Potassium Cocoate, Glycerin, Parfum, Alpha-Isomethyl Ionone, Hexyl Cinnamal, Limonene, Linalool, Hydroxycitronellal, Lanolin, Titanium Dioxide, Sodium Chloride, Sodium Gluconate, Sodium Silicate, Tetrasodium EDTA, Magnesium Sulphate, Tetrasodium Etidronate.

The first thing that strikes me is that not only does it appear to contain a mix of Naoh and KOH, but the tallow at least may have been processed separately and added at a later stage, because only sodium tallowate is listed, there's no mention of potassium tallowate. The other thing that jumps out a mile is that there doesn't appear to be a great deal of lanolin in it, it's 15th on the list.

Just as a bit of interest, I found a site with some information about Victorian shaving soaps, not altogether on topic but since they are (more or less) contemporaneous with MWF(if their advertising is true), I thought they might be worth a look. They can be found here: http://victoriansoapproject.blogspot.co.uk/

Oh yay! I'm so glad you started this thread. I will come back later and post my two attempts from last week, although I know nothing about MWF or the other brands I see y'all refer to sometimes. I just want to develop a good shaving soap. Both of my experiments last week were mostly tallow and stearic acid and both used both KOH and NaOH. That is very interesting about the sodium tallowate. It does appear as if the tallow was processed separately and then added back.

Got to run, but just saw this and wanted to say thanks for starting this thread.

I can't contribute too much unless there's a basic science question to answer, but I'm definitely curious and want to learn. Been reading some on the "other" SMF board. Good grief, I thought soap makers were an opinionated, niche bunch, but you shavers are off the charts for being persnickety and obsessed!

DeeAnna said:

I can't contribute too much unless there's a basic science question to answer, but I'm definitely curious and want to learn. Been reading some on the "other" SMF board. Good grief, I thought soap makers were an opinionated, niche bunch, but you shavers are off the charts for being persnickety and obsessed!

Click to expand...

A straight razor is sharp and a little bit scary. It pays to be a little bit persnickety and obsessed:crazy:. And I'm sure we can keep you busy with basic science questions :razz:

I couldn't resist ... this is the blade I use on a daily basis in my business. From tip to tip, it is about 4 inches across, and I keep it beard-shaving sharp.

And with this last digression, I'm returning to polite lurkdom....

Here is my first experiment from last week:
Stearic acid 43%
Tallow 30%
Castor oil 10%
Shea butter 10%
Coconut oil 7%

I put on paper the amounts of each oil, totaled that, then figured what 60% of those oils would be. I put those numbers in my soapcalc app to figure out how much KOH to use. I then did the same with figuring how much NaOH to use for 40% of the oils. I then put my recipe back together and put the oils in the crockpot. For the water amount I added together the amount of water called for in the KOH portion and the NaOH portion. I just poured both kinds of lye into the water and stirred off and on for a while til it was clear. The KOH did not dissolve as quickly as the NaOH but it finally did. I had melted the stearic and tallow in the crockpot on high, then I turned it on low for the rest of the process. I added 2 tsp of glycerin (1000 grams of oils used) when it was done as well as some lime and litsea cubeba EO, 2 tsp of sugar, 1 tsp of salt, and 2 tsp bentonite clay (the last 3 I had mixed into warm water earlier). I glopped it into PVC and let it set a couple of days. It did not want to come out of the PVC so I left alone another day and finally, using a lot of muscle, I got it out of the PVC and sliced it. It's softer than my regular cp soap, which I expected with that much KOH. I've given some to two testers but they haven't reported back yet. Going to get a few more testers. I want them to try it now and then I'll give them more in a month so they can compare fresh to a few weeks cure.

I'll keep you posted on their opinions, but in the meantime, thoughts? Critiques? Please feel free to share. One thing I've realized - I use the soapcalc app, don't have Internet at home right now so can't easily use the online calculators that allow you to combine the two lyes. That's not a problem except that I can't tell what the stearic values are for the total recipe. I can see what they are when I figure the two parts - I guess I could do some math and figure out the numbers when I put it back together, but ugh, more math.

Just looking in curiosity, would like to give it a try one day, but cannot contribute much.

I did find an ebay seller that makes shaving soap, thought you may be interested in ingredients. Check their store for more varieties.

Scroll down for ingredients:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Old-Spice-t...855?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item35c7917ae7

DeeAnna said:

I couldn't resist ... this is the blade I use on a daily basis in my business. From tip to tip, it is about 4 inches across, and I keep it beard-shaving sharp.

And with this last digression, I'm returning to polite lurkdom....

Click to expand...

If I saw that coming toward my face, I my running away would be very obsessive and persnickity indeed.

chicklet said:

Here is my first experiment from last week:
Stearic acid 43%
Tallow 30%
Castor oil 10%
Shea butter 10%
Coconut oil 7%

I put on paper the amounts of each oil, totaled that, then figured what 60% of those oils would be. I put those numbers in my soapcalc app to figure out how much KOH to use. I then did the same with figuring how much NaOH to use for 40% of the oils. I then put my recipe back together and put the oils in the crockpot. For the water amount I added together the amount of water called for in the KOH portion and the NaOH portion. I just poured both kinds of lye into the water and stirred off and on for a while til it was clear. The KOH did not dissolve as quickly as the NaOH but it finally did. I had melted the stearic and tallow in the crockpot on high, then I turned it on low for the rest of the process. I added 2 tsp of glycerin (1000 grams of oils used) when it was done as well as some lime and litsea cubeba EO, 2 tsp of sugar, 1 tsp of salt, and 2 tsp bentonite clay (the last 3 I had mixed into warm water earlier). I glopped it into PVC and let it set a couple of days. It did not want to come out of the PVC so I left alone another day and finally, using a lot of muscle, I got it out of the PVC and sliced it. It's softer than my regular cp soap, which I expected with that much KOH. I've given some to two testers but they haven't reported back yet. Going to get a few more testers. I want them to try it now and then I'll give them more in a month so they can compare fresh to a few weeks cure.

I'll keep you posted on their opinions, but in the meantime, thoughts? Critiques? Please feel free to share. One thing I've realized - I use the soapcalc app, don't have Internet at home right now so can't easily use the online calculators that allow you to combine the two lyes. That's not a problem except that I can't tell what the stearic values are for the total recipe. I can see what they are when I figure the two parts - I guess I could do some math and figure out the numbers when I put it back together, but ugh, more math.

Click to expand...

That looks very similar to the recipes that I've been playing with. The numbers are very slightly different, but the only thing that I've never used is castor oil, but that's only because I used the little I had in a 'pre-shave' soap I tried and never ordered any more. My shaving soaps tend to be quite soft, but they do harden up quite nicely as they dry. I tend to use the 38% water that is soapcalc defaults to, I'll probably reduce that a fair amount next time tho'.

mel z said:

Just looking in curiosity, would like to give it a try one day, but cannot contribute much.

I did find an ebay seller that makes shaving soap, thought you may be interested in ingredients. Check their store for more varieties.

Scroll down for ingredients:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Old-Spice-t...855?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item35c7917ae7

Click to expand...

Prairie creations get good reviews on the wet shave forums, I'm in the UK so I haven't tried them. The ingredients She uses look good tho'. I'm curious about the aloe vera juice, I wonder if the skin friendly goodies would survive the saponification process. Maybe Deeana could help with that, when she's finished scaring people with her big curvy knife that is

DeeAnna said:

I couldn't resist ... this is the blade I use on a daily basis in my business. From tip to tip, it is about 4 inches across, and I keep it beard-shaving sharp.

And with this last digression, I'm returning to polite lurkdom....

Click to expand...

And just what the heck do you do with said blade? It looks like a knife that would be used inside a bowl for chopping stuff up, like an antique version of the Slap-o-Matic.

DeeAnna said:

Good grief, I thought soap makers were an opinionated, niche bunch, but you shavers are off the charts for being persnickety and obsessed!

Click to expand...

That's the serious truth. I've been active on one of the two big shaving boards for many years, and if you believed everything you read, it would be easy to accept the notion that every cream or soap (and every ingredient), every razor, every brush, and every strop and hone could be identified in a blind test, and that anyone incapable of doing so was a simpleton. The soap folks here have nowhere close to that kind of righteous bravado. Soapers are genuinely nice. I want to kiss all of you (respectfully on the forehead, of course.)

That's not say that shavers hallucinate regularly; perhaps it's only occasionally. For example, I prefer natural Belgian hones, soft Italian shave soaps and 19th century Sheffield straight razors. Others prefer Japanese hones, Turkish stick soaps and German razors. I always know what kind of shave I'll get when I choose the kit for my daily shave. That's half the fun. Wait: that's not accurate. It's all the fun. This morning I wanted to hear the high-pitched sound of a vintage Spanish razor, the scritchy feel of a stiff combination boar/badger brush, and a hot uber-lather, which, for all you leg-shavers, is when a soap is mixed with a cream and a few drops of extra glycerin in a scuttle warmed for 15 minutes with water from a hot kettle. The lather is outrageous! If that's crazy then I'm a raving lunatic, but I can't imagine shaving any other way.

I love my coticule! Various people on wet shaving forums told me I would be mad to get one as a first hone, but since I'm a bit wrong in the head I got one anyway. It does everything from set a bevel to a bit of a touch up. My two favourite razors are a 5/8 Sheffield ground kropp and a 6/8 Taylor's witness. I'm quite partial to spot of arko tho'

I am laughing at you two ... such outrageous enthusiasm! I do agree with you that soap makers are a genuinely nice bunch. Leather workers are good folks too. That's what I do for a living -- work with leather.

The scary sharp blade in my photo is a "head knife" used for cutting long straps from big pieces of leather (as shown in the photo) as well as many other jobs. A head knife is the traditional leatherworker's tool, and it can be used to prepare leather for anything from a heavy horse harness to a valuable antique book. I was scared s**tless of the knife for a year after I bought it, but I finally forced myself to get over my fear and learn how to use it properly. Now, a decade later, I use it daily and would be lost without it.

It might make you feel less "wrong in the head" to know leather workers also love fine blades with a passion and can debate the fine points of a particular maker or tool with great enthusiasm. My head knife has a beautiful rosewood handle and a thin highly tempered blade, dates to the late 1800s, and was made by highly respected knife maker of the day. I am only taking care of this knife while I can; I hope someone, someday will be able use it for yet another generation, given the right care and respect.

The blade is very thin and the edge is fairly delicate -- much like the edge of your straight razors, I would imagine. It requires regular stropping and, oh, don't even think about dropping it! Properly sharpened, it will cut ones hand deeply with just the tiniest accidental tap against the skin, but can cut through 3/8" thick heavy harness leather effortlessly.

Okay, now I AM putting my enthusiasm for lovely blades away and letting y'all go back to conversing about shaving soap.

Want to thank you guys for sharing such wonderful information. Mostly it brought back Dad, who worked on leather as a hobby, and loved his straight razor, mug of soap and brush. He never told us all the beautiful details of his antique tools, but he prized them daily as one of the few pleasures he allowed himself, and it is good to know they bring pleasure to the owner. Thank you all.

DeeAnna said:

I couldn't resist ... this is the blade I use on a daily basis in my business. From tip to tip, it is about 4 inches across, and I keep it beard-shaving sharp.

And with this last digression, I'm returning to polite lurkdom....

Click to expand...

I know that blade! What kind of leather work do you do? It's been a hobby of mine for about 8 years. I've made holsters and belts and a lot of other little stuff, but the tooling is more my thing. I'd love to see some of your work.

I'm back from a week away at the seaside, and dying to make more soap! Sadly the stearic acid I ordered still hasn't turned up so I thought I'd try a recipe I found on the Victorian soap project (there's a link to it at the start of the thread). It's a fairly simple recipe, 1/3 coconut oil and 2/3 tallow, I will probably use more KOH than the original recipe, and I reckon a spot of extra glycerine would not go amiss. The numbers on soapcalc tell me it should be complete rubbish, but we all know that it can't always be trusted! And after all, if I'm using the same blade as a Victorian would've used why not try the same soap!

Have you seen this guy's work yet?

In this writeup, he describes saponifying his fats w NaOH and reacting stearic acid with KOH, then mixing the two resulting soaps:
http://www.japudo.com.br/en/2013/03/19/shaving-soap-by-cold-process/

http://www.japudo.com.br/en/2013/02/26/vegetable-shaving-soap-and-cream/

That looks very interesting. If my stearic acid ever turns up I think I may have to make that my next little experiment. Thanks for posting that DeeAnna. My back in time Victorian soap has just come out of the oven, I can't wait to give that a test lather. Haven't got very high hopes, but who knows!

I thought y'all might enjoy this quote about shaving soaps from: "The soap maker's handbook of materials, processes and receipts for every description of soap...", by Brannt, William T., 1912. In the public domain and available at the Internet Archive.

My notes:
Some of the odd symbols in this excerpt are artifacts from the scanning process. I do not know what the correct characters should be, so I've left the symbols intact.
The "pot-ash" (KOH) and "soda ash" (NaOH) solutions in Brannt's book are measured with the "Baume" scale. A KOH solution that has the same density as an NaOH solution will have different percentages by weight. For example, an NaOH solution at 30 B is 23.67% NaOH by weight. A KOH solution at 30 B is 30% KOH by weight.
The use of density to measure solution concentration is quite confusing to us handcraft soapers, but in an industrial setting, a density test is quick, cheap, and easy. I have tried to put the correct weight percentages in brackets [ ] next to the Baume densities.

Moving on to the quote:

Shaving soaps. —These soaps are prepared in various ways. The properties demanded from a good quality of shaving soap are, that it yields a good and heavy lather, which should remain standing for a considerable time, and at the same time be mild and delicate.

To combine these properties, fats yielding a good lather have to be chosen and saponified with alkalies exerting a mild effect upon the beard and skin. A neutral grained soap is the best to use, and if boiled with both soda and potash lyes, instead of soda lye alone, it is rendered still milder. While two-thirds of soda lye to one-third of potash lye are usually employed, it is better to take one-half of each. Soaps from cocoanut oil and palmnut oil yield an excellent lather, but the latter is not permanent enough. Tallow soaps, on the other hand, do not lather as freely, but the lather is more permanent. Hence a better lathering soap is obtained by saponifying some cocoanut oil with the tallow in the proportion of 10 to 12 lbs. of the former to 100 lbs. of the latter....

Cold Stirred shaving soap [aka "cold process"] — Bring into the kettle 80 pounds of white tallow and 40 pounds of cocoanut oil. Heat to about 99.5 F., and the fats being melted, add in the usual manner 64 pounds of caustic soda lye of 30° B [23.67%]. and 16 pounds of pot-ash lye of 30° B. [35.9%], until the mass forms a well-combined, homogeneous paste. The entire operation requires at the utmost fifteen to twenty minutes. It is finished when the surface of the soap becomes covered with a film which constantly re-forms, notwithstanding stirring. Perfume the soap with oils of lavender and thyme, each 3} ounces, oil of cumin 7 ounces, oil of bergamot 10} ounces. The perfume is added to the soap, with constant stirring, before bringing it into the frame.

A few additional formulas for cold-stirred shaving soaps are here given:

I. Tallow 30 lbs., olive oil 14 lbs., cocoanut oil 6 lbs., caustic soda lye of 35° B [28.83%]. 20 lbs., potash lye of 10° B [9.2%]. 18 lbs. Heat the fats to 120° F. Perfume: Bergamot oil 2J ozs., oil of caraway 1} ozs., lavender oil 1J ozs., thyme oil J oz., tincture of musk 2| drachms.

II. Tallow 34 lbs., oil of almonds 10 lbs., cocoanut oil 6 lbs., caustic soda lye of 25° B [18.58%]. 20 lbs., potash lye of 20° B [18.6%]. 19 lbs. Keep the fat at 116° to 118° F. Perfume: Bergamot oil 1} ozs., oil of bitter almonds 2f drachms, geranium oil 3} ozs.

III. Tallow 33 lbs., sesame oil 10 lbs., cocoanut oil 6 lbs., caustic soda lye of 35° B [28.83%]. 20 lbs., potash lye of 20° B [18.6%]. 18 lbs. Heat the fat to from 86° to 90° F. Perfume: Safrol 2 ozs., peppermint oil } oz., patchouli oil 2| drachms.

For the preparation of a shaving soap from tallow and almond oil by the cold process, Schimmel & Co., Leipzig, Germany, give the following formula: Tallow 85 parts and fatty almond oil 15 parts are stirred up at 113° to 115° F. with 25 parts of caustic soda lye of 38° B [32.47%]. and 25 parts of potash lye of 38° B [35.9%]. Saponification proceeds smoothly, and the resulting soap gives an excellent lather and has a fine white appearance. The bars do not warp, but remain rectangular.