Another Shaving Bar Critique

[Ktaggard]

My 20 year old son recently joined the new, hip movement of wet shaving. He brought me a shaving bar and asked if I could figure out how to make it. After reading and messing around with soapcalc, I came up with this recipe. (Note: I have made Shaving bars before by just tweaking my soap recipes - but they totally don't cut it for straight edge shaving)

Shea Butter 25%
Stearic Acid 40%
Castor Oil 25%
Coconut Oil 5%
Avocado Oil 5%

That gives me the following:
Hardness 56
Cleansing 3
Conditioning 42
Bubbly 26
Creamy 75
Iodine 42
INS 149

Lauric 2
Myristic 1
Palmitic 3
Stearic 50
Ricinoleic 23
Oleic 16
Linoleic 3
Linolenic 0

I'm planning on adding Kaolin Clay and glycerin. My major concern is the conditioning factor. I am having trouble reconciling high steric content with conditioning. Any thoughts on this dilemma and the recipe in general.
(Lindy - has advised stearic be over 60. I just don't know how unless I up steric acid and conditioning gets very low - argh!) Thanks in advance.

 

[Lindy]

Use the SF to offset the drying effects of the Stearic

 

[fatfacedcharlie]

Hi, I've just tried my second shaving soap experiment. After trawling the inernet for the ingredients of the top end soaps on the market, this is the recipe I came up with:

40% Stearic acid
30% Beef tallow
20% Shea butter
10% Coconut oil.

with a 2% superfat and 40% of the lye was KOH. I HP'd it in the oven. According to soapcalc the conditioning was about 24 or something (can't remember of the top of my head). To combat that, when it had done cooking, I added 10% glycerin and a further 6% sheabutter (both % of total oil). It went very thick very quickly and was difficult to get into the mould and when it came out it was ugly! But go near it with a damp brush and it fills the sink with a really stable creamy lather. I've only shaved with it once and that was 2 days after I made it, but it didn't seem as drying as the numbers would suggest (I'm a straight razor user, and I'm a bit picky about soaps). Only time will tell tho' !

HTH

 

[sistrum]

Just wondering how your shaving soap is doing? Did you find using 40% KOH made it to conditioning? If you do it again would you still use the extra Shea butter? My husband's shaving soap is getting harder to find and I told him I would start working on a recipe.
TYIA. Sissy

 

[fatfacedcharlie]

I've been shaving with it exclusivley for a week now, and I realise I might be a bit biased, but it is pretty good. I'm not sure there is such a thing as too conditioning for a shaving soap. And the shea butter gives it quite a nice slip without feeling greasy. In fact I've just made another batch with palm oil instead of tallow that has that much shea in, although I haven't shaved with it yet the lather seems just as good. One of Lindy's tips was to add sodium lactate to make it bit smoother and easier to mould, and it did help quite a lot. What I would be tempted to do is look at the ingredients list of the soap your husband likes and come up with a recipe similar to that, then you can test and tweak until you get what you are after. HTH

 

[Lindy]

Just wondering how your shaving soap is doing? Did you find using 40% KOH made it to conditioning? If you do it again would you still use the extra Shea butter? My husband's shaving soap is getting harder to find and I told him I would start working on a recipe.
TYIA. Sissy

Hey there Sissy,

Just so you know, KOH does not add any conditioning. Like NaOH it a lye and it usually used in liquid soaps as well as cream soaps.

fatfacedcharlie I'm glad this is working for you....

 

[sistrum]

I was talking about the fact that koh is not as strong as NAOH, like if you were to replace the NaOH in a reg. batch of soap superfatted at 5% with the same amount of KOH your batch would have a superfat closer to 33%. That's why I was asking about the extra moisturizing. You can add a bit of koh to cold process soap, it increases the bubbles by making the soap more soluble which is why you find it in some shaving soap recipes. At least that has been my experience. Sorry for the mix up. Sissy

 

[fatfacedcharlie]

I was talking about the fact that koh is not as strong as NAOH, like if you were to replace the NaOH in a reg. batch of soap superfatted at 5% with the same amount of KOH your batch would have a superfat closer to 33%. That's why I was asking about the extra moisturizing. You can add a bit of koh to cold process soap, it increases the bubbles by making the soap more soluble which is why you find it in some shaving soap recipes. At least that has been my experience. Sorry for the mix up. Sissy

What I actually did was calculate the amount of each type of lye for a 60/40 split of the oils at a superfat of 2%. In the batch above I used 500g of oils in total, so I put the percentages of oils into soapcalc and calculated the amount of NaOH for a 300g batch and KOH for a 200g batch. Off the top of my head I think I used 42g of NaOH and 39g of KOH (My notebook has been tidied up so I'm uing my memory which is not always that reliable). I added the extra shea butter after cooking and the soap was more or less neutral. I think a superfat of 33% might be a bit too high for a good lather, might give it a greasy feel to.

 

[sistrum]

Ok, now I get it. I thought you just swapped 40% of your NaOh for the same weight of koh, that's why I was wondering if it might be a little to moisturizing ( as in oily). Thanks for the update. Sissy

 

[fatfacedcharlie]

Ok, now I get it. I thought you just swapped 40% of your NaOh for the same weight of koh, that's why I was wondering if it might be a little to moisturizing ( as in oily). Thanks for the update. Sissy

It would be great if you could let me know how you get on with your shaving soap, whatever recipe you use. What started as a weekend project for me seems to have turned into a bit of an obsession

 

[sistrum]

Thought I would give you a quick update. The other week I cooked 5oz. of steric acid with the amount of koh my soap calc said for a liquid soap with a 2% superfat, I added water for a 33% solution then later added my steric play dough (grated up) to my cp recipe.
I poured it into muffin molds and did not gel. It's not done curing yet but the lather I whipped up from a test piece lasted well over 20 min. without shrinking and stayed quite creamy.
I forgot to heat up the water I used to mix my koh in and that made the process a real ***** but other than that everything went well. I'll post again after they cure longer. How's it going for you?

 

[fatfacedcharlie]

I like the idea of mixing the oils separately with the different lyes and them mixing it all up after, I guess it would allow you to to fine tune the lather a bit more. I haven't made any more shaving soap since I did a palm based version of the tallow one, I'm still testing them out. I've got a couple of batches planned tho', one using pure myristic acid instead of cocounut oil, I'm hoping to use a bit less of that than coconut oil and up the shea butter a bit for more conditioning. The other using a bit more tallow and a bit less stearic acid. My other half is away next weekend so I can take over the kitchen for a day without getting on her nerves, a whole days soaping what fun!