Dual Lye Shave Soap - Making it fluid

[Mary1421]

Hi there - I've recently been experimenting with dual lye shave soap. The soap qualities are great but I'm having a hard time getting the batter in the mold and making them visually appealing. Is there a trick to making shave soap so that it can be poured in to the puck molds?

My recipe is uses
stearic acid
coconut
hemp
castor

at the taffy stage I add
Sodium lactate
Nettle
Vitamin E
EOs


Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Johnez]

Hi there - I've recently been experimenting with dual lye shave soap. The soap qualities are great but I'm having a hard time getting the batter in the mold and making them visually appealing. Is there a trick to making shave soap so that it can be poured in to the puck molds?

My recipe is uses
stearic acid
coconut
hemp
castor

at the taffy stage I add
Sodium lactate
Nettle
Vitamin E
EOs


Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Listing the percentages or quantities of oils and lyes used would be helpful.

Something like:
KOH/NaOH 60/40
stearic acid 50%
coconut 20%
hemp 20%
castor 10%

Also, I'm assuming you are HPing this?

 

[Mary1421]

Good morning Johnez - I'm doing counter top hot process - it goes through the stages really fast.

The % break down is
KOH/NaOh 60/40, Lye Strength 20% with 5% superfat
Stearic Acid 52.2%
Coconut 28%
Hemp 11.6%
Castor 8.2%

 

[Rsapienza]

Hi there - I've recently been experimenting with dual lye shave soap. The soap qualities are great but I'm having a hard time getting the batter in the mold and making them visually appealing. Is there a trick to making shave soap so that it can be poured in to the puck molds?

My recipe is uses
stearic acid
coconut
hemp
castor

at the taffy stage I add
Sodium lactate
Nettle
Vitamin E
EOs


Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Do you not add glycerin to your shave soap? Most recipes I have seen have glycerin. Back to your original question…I do not have an answer on how to make it pourable, but what I do is mold mine into a log in freezer paper. My shave soap is like the consistency of play-doh. I plop it in the freezer paper and roll back And forth forming a log. Then, in a few days I cut into pucks. It works for me

 

[Mary1421]

Thanks Rsapienza - I experimented with glycerin and found this lathers a bit better and the feedback from users was they liked the glide better. I haven't tried rolling it like play-doh. I might give it a try.

I meant to ask if there was any harm in pouring right after it passes out of the applesause stage. I'm generally a cold process soaper so I don't have a ton of experience with hot process. My crock pot seems really hot (even on the low setting) so I do the soap on the counter after the oils heat up. Maybe I'm soaping at too high of a temp?

 

[Johnez]

I meant to ask if there was any harm in pouring right after it passes out of the applesause stage. I'm generally a cold process soaper so I don't have a ton of experience with hot process. My crock pot seems really hot (even on the low setting) so I do the soap on the counter after the oils heat up. Maybe I'm soaping at too high of a temp?

If it has already gelled, most likely it's done with saponification, so likely yes it can be poured into a container. Saponification is quicker with the added heat and should be fine, however a good cure is still recommended (4+ weeks).

If you want to the soap more pourable, I recommend checking out sodium lactate. I've not yet gone down this avenue so I cannot say of it works particularly well for shave soaps with high amounts of stearic acid and coconut oil. Keeping a firm seal on your crockpot also helps keep the moisture in, making it more pourable. Some HP soapers use stretch film over their crocks for that.

 

[Rsapienza]

however a good cure is still recommended (4+ weeks).

I thought shave soaps didn’t need to cure like regular soaps??? Did I imagine reading that??

 

[user 49910]

Hi there - I've recently been experimenting with dual lye shave soap. The soap qualities are great but I'm having a hard time getting the batter in the mold and making them visually appealing. Is there a trick to making shave soap so that it can be poured in to the puck molds?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Since it is a dual-lye soap, it's probably pretty hot when trace occurs. When your ready to pour into the mold, add Sodium Lactate at a ratio of 5% of oil weight and 10% Vegetable Glycerin of oil weight to the thickened batter. Mix the two together prior to adding to the batter and then use a French whip or silicone spatula to blend them into the soap... right away you will notice the mixture loosens up and becomes very workable / pourable to put into your soap mold.

I use this process with my dual-lye shave soaps because I use a 3" x 24 Sch 40 PVC pipe mold for making my soap pucks. This process has worked for over 7 batches so far.

Good Luck! Let us know how it worked out for you!

I thought shave soaps didn’t need to cure like regular soaps??? Did I imagine reading that??

All soaps... yes even hot process, improve with a curing period. **NOTE: (Except for liquid soap recipes.)
It's not really about the saponification nor the moisture evaporation; it's more about the process of the soap salt crystalline structure developing completely. One will notice that after a 4 week curing time the soap will lather much more easily and with denser, creamier lather.

I cut my shave soap puck 24 hours after putting into the mold. Let them sit on a stainless steel wire grid rack for 2 days to surface dry and then wrap up in Saran wrap or shrink wrap. My soaps are a semi-soft puck and then I let them cure for a minimum of 4 weeks. Then I put them up for sale on a couple of websites.

 

[Becky1024]

Sodium lactate and using full water will help make it more pourable. I've also heard yogurt helps too but have not tried it. With all the stearic acid in there, I doubt if a shave soap will ever be as fluid as a cold process regular soap but the sodium lactate and water helps. I kind of plop mine into the mold and smooch it down after each plop (gotta love the technical terms!).

 

[user 49910]

Sodium lactate and using full water will help make it more pourable. I've also heard yogurt helps too but have not tried it. With all the stearic acid in there, I doubt if a shave soap will ever be as fluid as a cold process regular soap but the sodium lactate and water helps. I kind of plop mine into the mold and smooch it down after each plop (gotta love the technical terms!).

Sodium Lactate is a substitute for yogurt. The acidity is much easier to control using sodium lactate, it's clear, and derived from a natural fermentation process... so therefore it's a natural product. "Smooch it down"????.... smooch is a kiss. Smooch it down is going toward the "Garden of Earthly Delights" in my twisted mind!

 

[Becky1024]

Sodium Lactate is a substitute for yogurt. The acidity is much easier to control using sodium lactate, it's clear, and derived from a natural fermentation process... so therefore it's a natural product. "Smooch it down"????.... smooch is a kiss. Smooch it down is going toward the "Garden of Earthly Delights" in my twisted mind!

Haha! Now when I make shave soap I’ll give it a kiss!

 

[Rsapienza]

All soaps... yes even hot process, improve with a curing period. It's not really about the saponification nor the moisture evaporation; it's more about the process of the soap salt crystalline structure developing completely. One will notice that after a 4 week curing time the soap will lather much more easily and with denser, creamier lather.

I am aware of the curing process. I just could swear that I had read that dual lye shaving soaps don’t seem to need it…that no one noticed a difference whether it be freshly made or cured 6 weeks. Maybe I really did imagine/dream it. LOL wouldn’t be a first for me

 

[earlene]

I am aware of the curing process. I just could swear that I had read that dual lye shaving soaps don’t seem to need it…that no one noticed a difference whether it be freshly made or cured 6 weeks. Maybe I really did imagine/dream it. LOL wouldn’t be a first for me

Perhaps you really did read it somewhere, but that doesn't make it true. There is a lot of misinformation spread around all over the place about all kinds of things. Soap making is just as likely to be subject to misinformation spread as anything else.

 

[DeeAnna]

I'm on the record as saying liquid soap doesn't need to cure in the same way that solid soap does. I do think liquid soap can benefit from a few days to several weeks of sitting after dilution to let any solids settle or float out of the liquid soap, but it's not strictly necessary.

I can't say I've ever said that shave soap doesn't need to cure. I always cure mine. I have even been able to see what looks like crystalline patterns form in a few batches of shaving soap -- pretty crazy to watch that happen.

 

[Mary1421]

Is it becuase shave soap is being made via hot process? While hot process can benefit from the cure time, it's not required?

 

[Rsapienza]

Perhaps you really did read it somewhere, but that doesn't make it true.

I didn’t say it was true, hence, the question marks “???”. Clearly, I must’ve been confusing it with something else.

 

[user 49910]

Is it becuase shave soap is being made via hot process? While hot process can benefit from the cure time, it's not required?

Hello @Mary1421 Hot process will get us to the fully saponified state much quicker, but the soap salt crystals still need time for a more complete soap structure, molecularly speaking. Jeez... did I just state that?

As I stated in the previous post above:
All soaps... yes even hot process, improve with a curing period. **NOTE: (Except for liquid soap recipes.)
It's not really about the saponification nor the moisture evaporation; it's more about the process of the soap salt crystalline structure developing completely. One will notice that after a 4 week curing time the soap will lather much more easily and with denser, creamier lather.

 

[DeeAnna]

Is it becuase shave soap is being made via hot process? While hot process can benefit from the cure time, it's not required?

No, that's not valid conclusion. Any soap, regardless of how it is saponified (hot process, cold process, boiled method, rebatch, salted-out, etc.), is safe to use after saponification is over (assuming it's not lye heavy). Any solid type of soap, regardless of how it is saponified, will benefit from being allowed to cure -- it will last longer in the bath or at the sink, lather more easily and abundantly, and be milder to the skin.

It is true that hot process soap saponifies quicker than most cold process soap due to the added heat. The cure time for any soap, regardless of how it is saponified, begins after saponification is over.

 

[Mary1421]

Thank you everyone for your thoughts. I added sodium lactate and glycerin to the batch and cooked the batch around 165/167 degrees. It still set up really fast. So I did a ton of video wathcing and settled on a recipe where the video clearly shows there is some time to get the soap in to molds. Same results - it set up really fast. So I took her recipe and put in in to Soapee Next (the calculator she used), I aslo put the same recipe in saponiCalc - Soap Calculator. Both calculators came out roughly the same using a 40/60% NaOH .87 oz/KOH 2.05 oz (saponicalc) and NaOH .87 oz and KOH 2.03 oz (soapee). I use soapmaker - it gives me NaOH 1.07 oz and KOH 1.79 oz (2 parts NaOh to 3 parts KOH - which should be 40/60%, unless I did my math wrong). In order to make soapmakers numbers come close to the other 2 calculators I have to do a 1.12 part NaOH to 2.16 parts KOH - which is .88 oz NaOH/2.08 oz KOH. Is soapmaker wrong or is my parts incorrect.

Update: I did an update on soapmaker and this was in the release notes - hopefully this solves my issues.

• Dual lye recipes:
  • Lye weights were not calculated correctly based on ratio of NaOH to KOH if KOH purity was less than 100%.
    The total amount of lye was correct for saponification, but the weight ratio was not exactly as specified.
  • Recipe totals showed an incorrect total volume.

 

[user 49910]

Nearly all KOH on the calculators is used at a 90% purity level. This is because KOH is so hygroscopic, i.e., it attracts water like crazy.

I suggest you increase the water to lye ratio; that is, if the calculator is telling you 30% lye to water ratio, drop that down to a 25% lye to water ratio and see how much more workable your soap will become. I had to do that with my dual lye shaving soap because I use a 3" x 24" PVC pipe mold for making pucks.

The saponiCalc calculator defaults water/lye percentage at 33%, try adjusting it to around 25% and see how it works. My dual lye recipe uses a 22.22% lye to water percentage or a 1 to 3.5 ratio. Yes, adding more water will increase the need for more air drying after saponification, but it also greatly increases the workability of the traced batter to make it be able to pour into molds or spoon into individual molds. Take my word for it... it works very well. I sell my soaps also, and have had no complaints... yet. Also, the sodium lactate I add helps to improve the release of the product from the mold when the soap has completely cooled and solidified after about 20 hours or so.