Good Shaving Soap Recipe?

[soapart]

Hi all,

I hope this is the right place to post this query. I am new to the forum and this is my first go at formuating my own recipe.

I've done a good bit of research on shaving soaps and this is what I have come up with:
OO 14oz
CO 10oz
Castor Oil 8oz
Cocoa Butter 6oz
Aloe Vera liquid 12oz
NaOH 5.3oz
1 TBSP green clay

Soap Calc
H 37
Clean 18
Con 37
B 37
Cream 38
Iodine 58
INS 151

What do you guys think? Any advice gratefully received.
Thanks.

 

[Mark the Box Guy]

You might consider using a generic Bentonite clay rather than the French Green clay. My understanding is that the Bentonite is much slicker than a pure French Green. I make a facial mask from the French Green, and can attest that there is nothing slick about it. I often see Bentonite on recipes and on labels.

Another humble suggestion would be to use Lanolin rather than Cocoa Butter, as it's the unique ingredient in the rather infamous Mitchell's Wool Fat shave soap. I just ordered some Lanolin for that very reason. I can't comment on the oils though, but there are two active shaving soap threads in the CP forum that might be informative.

 

[soapart]

Thanks for the advice Mark.
I have considered Lanolin but I wont be purchasing any new ingredients for a while and was hoping to make do with what I have. I may leave the shaving soap experiment until I can get some new supplies.
Thanks again.

 

[fatfacedcharlie]

I've been experimenting with shaving soaps for two or three months now, and I'm starting to get some pretty good results. I would go with Mark's suggestion and search the forums for shaving soap, songwind posted a recipe recently which I tried last week and found to be very, very good. If you have a favourite shaving soap, I would suggest that you look at the ingredients list and use that as a starting point.
The recipe you've posted has much more olive oil in it than I would use (I don't like it at all in shaving soap) and I've never really got on with castor oil either it always seems to kill the lather when I've used it.
For me the key is a high stearic acid content, most of mine are 50% plus, also I would recommend using a mix of NaOH and KOH. The KOH makes it a bit softer but does wonders for the lather. And don't worry too much about the numbers on soapcalc, they don't always give you a particularly good idea of how it will turn out.

The most important thing of course is to experiment and have fun.

 

[Mark the Box Guy]

I've been experimenting with shaving soaps for two or three months now, and I'm starting to get some pretty good results. I would go with Mark's suggestion and search the forums for shaving soap, songwind posted a recipe recently which I tried last week and found to be very, very good. If you have a favourite shaving soap, I would suggest that you look at the ingredients list and use that as a starting point.
The recipe you've posted has much more olive oil in it than I would use (I don't like it at all in shaving soap) and I've never really got on with castor oil either it always seems to kill the lather when I've used it.
For me the key is a high stearic acid content, most of mine are 50% plus, also I would recommend using a mix of NaOH and KOH. The KOH makes it a bit softer but does wonders for the lather. And don't worry too much about the numbers on soapcalc, they don't always give you a particularly good idea of how it will turn out.

The most important thing of course is to experiment and have fun.

Charlie...

Which calculator helps you compute a soap with both KOH and NaOH? Soapcalc doesn't. I plan to make shaving cream next. Go lather!

 

[fatfacedcharlie]

Mark

My current favourite shave soap, gets 50% of the lye from NaOH and the other 50% from KOH. All I did with soapcalc was enter the oils as percentages as normal and then calculate half of the batch weight with NaOH and half with KOH.

 

[Mark the Box Guy]

Mark

My current favourite shave soap, gets 50% of the lye from NaOH and the other 50% from KOH. All I did with soapcalc was enter the oils as percentages as normal and then calculate half of the batch weight with NaOH and half with KOH.

That solution is absurdly beautiful! Perfect!

 

[DeeAnna]

Or use the calculator at Summer Bee Meadow: https://summerbeemeadow.com/

 

[fatfacedcharlie]

Or use the calculator at Summer Bee Meadow: https://summerbeemeadow.com/

I've looked at that, and I don't like it for the simple reason that it, along with many other 'advanced' calculators, assume that any soap with KOH is either a cream or liquid soap. That simply isn't the case, my favourite shaving soap has a 50:50 mix of NaOH and KOH and is as solid as any basic NaOH only soap. I favour my soapcalc method because I can decide what oils to use, the combination of lye types I want without being faced with a host of options about alcohol types and stearic supercream options that are irrelevant. Just my opinion though, some might like the extra options.

 

[DeeAnna]

You have a point -- one I tend to agree with. Just giving folks options to consider. I use my own spreadsheet, FWIW, using soapcalc as the occasional double check.