Duck Fat Shaving Soap: What's a Good Recipe?

[Michael_W]

I have a jar of duck fat and two bottles of oil, one almond and one castor, that I'd like to use in a shave-soap-making experiment. Never having made soap of any kind, however, I'm running into a wall when it comes to finding suitable recipes. Does anyone know of any or where I might find them?

 

[Kamahido]

Before you go looking for a recipe, you might want to start with learning the basics of soap making before you end up in the Emergency Room (not an exaggeration). Here is the first of four videos on how to make soap, starting with safety...

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

And those oils won't make a good shaving soap, no matter how you spin it. You'll need more oils (and possibly leaving out some of the ones that you have!)

 

[BrewerGeorge]

Duck fat is too wonderful for cooking to waste on soap, IMO.

Make fries with that, not soap!

 

[dixiedragon]

Since duck fat is fairly expensive, in your shoes I'd freeze it and experiment with a few tried and true recipes.

Is your goal to produce a good shave soap with the novelty of duck fat? If so, you could find one here and add duck fat at 5%.

 

[Zany_in_CO]

...I'm running into a wall when it comes to finding suitable recipes. Does anyone know of any or where I might find them?

Ditto what others have said, altho I might be tempted to sub a bit of duck fat for lard/tallow/palm in a recipe if I had some to use up.

Check out the Beginner's Forum -- Sticky: Learn to Soap Online thread. There you will find links to several sites that have recipes for Shaving Soap. Lovin' Soap Studio might be the best site for that purpose. It's a husband & wife team. The hubby has his own line of men's grooming products.

 

[IrishLass]

Duck fat looks to be very similar to lard as far as soaping qualities go. I make mention of that because I found a shave soap recipe a few years ago on a forum called Shave My Face that got glowing reviews by those that tried it. It's made with lard, stearic acid, coconut oil, castor oil and lanolin. You can see the recipe (created by a member named drmoss_ca) in the second post here. Run the recipe through SoapCalc and sub your duck fat for the lard and hit 'calculate' to get the proper lye amounts. I've not made the recipe myself since I have my own formula that I make that my hubby loves, but it's something that I've always wanted to try making because I love soaps made with lard.


IrishLass

 

[Primrose]

I've not made a shave soap yet but I've used duck fat in one recipe so far and absolutely loved it. Shame its so expensive

 

[madison]

Animal fats are very lovely in soap, if you process your own ducks and you have extra fat, save them to try them when you have a balanced recipe.

 

[Michael_W]

Thanks for the input. I managed to locate a soap recipe that I will try once I've acquired all the ingredients, and of course I will take every precaution before starting. The reason I want to use duck fat is because I had a jar of duck fat that was expired and I didn't want to waste it. Alas, flooding at the location where I was keeping it led to the refrigerator it was stored in being unplugged for nearly a week, and so I had to dump the fat down the drain as it had gone rancid by the time I was able to return to the office to recover it.

But, having used Oleo Soap Works duck-tallow shave soap, I want to try and create my own recipe to see if I can make something similar with my own scent profile (I'm thinking almond with either cherry or vanilla). That, or mutton tallow.

 

[Zany_in_CO]

Oh, I'm sorry your duck fat was ruined! Good luck with formulating your own recipe. Almond/cherry/vanilla blend mind-smells awesome to me!

 

[Lin19687]

If the fat was Expired it may not have been good to use anyway.
Use good non-rancid oils.
Not sure how duck fat smells when it goes off. GL

 

[xmasdeer]

I have been using duck fat in my recipes, 10% for a while now. It does not smell of duck, but like all animal fats, has a very mild and different smell to vegetable oils. I use it with 30% coconut and then add other oils. None have gone rancid. No smell at all after soaping and smells like all other soaps I have made, except the 100% olive oil soap of course.

 

[DCRIII]

Duck fat is a wonderful ingredient for making shaving soap. I use it in all of the shaving and bath soap I make.
While I don't have a recipe I can share, I will suggest using a 40/60 ratio for your lyes. 40% NaOH and 60% KOH. Also refrain from using olive oil, it's a major shave lather killer.