Hot process shaving soap - does this look reasonable?

[Sam Ch]

Can we add Sles also?
What's the time required to heat up this mixture in order to get better finished product?

 

[Flyrod77]

Can we add Sles also?
What's the time required to heat up this mixture in order to get better finished product?

I don't know about Sles. I have sensitive skin, so I am careful about the ingredients I use for shaving soap. I have read that Sles can be irritating so some (I don't even use coconut oil in my soaps anymore).

As far as time required, this is pretty quick to make. I am not an expert on any of this. But this is what works well for me. I melt the Stearic Acid in the microwave (50% power, and I melt it slowly... maybe 30 second bursts) and let it cool to ~170 degrees (stearic won’t melt unless you get it up to around ~170). Then I add this to my slow cooker pot that is on low setting. I stir in the Shea Butter and Palm Oil and finally the Castor oil. The reason I try to keep temperatures down a bit is due to the Shea Butter graininess if it is heated much hotter than 160-170 degrees. Stir until fully melted.

Put the lye in with the frozen coconut milk. When it cools down to at least the 160 degrees, add it to the oils.

At that point, the soap will instantly firm up due to the Stearic Acid reacting with the lye. Finish the recipe with a hot process soap cook until the soap is zap free. I'm not sure of how long this is, time wise, but I'm thinking it is pretty fast, no more than an hour.

Once cook is done, I turn off the slow cooker and let it cool to around 140 degrees before I stir in the fragrance oil. I then put the batter into my shaving soap bowls. That's it. It's all VERY easy. I let the soap age 1 month before I use it.

I shave with straight razors so the quality of the shaving soap is critically important. This recipe makes the best shaving soap that I have ever used, including the very expensive ones. It is just incredible. It is very easy to make, so that's good too. Good luck.

 

[dixiedragon]

I want to try this! Of course, not sure who I will get to try it - I'm a waxer and my brother uses an electric razor. I can't math today, can you explain this better?

60/40 KOH/NaOH(90%) lye ratio

Also, what type of coconut milk? Canned or the drinking coconut milk that's next to the almond milk?

 

[Flyrod77]

I want to try this! Of course, not sure who I will get to try it - I'm a waxer and my brother uses an electric razor. I can't math today, can you explain this better?

60/40 KOH/NaOH(90%) lye ratio

Also, what type of coconut milk? Canned or the drinking coconut milk that's next to the almond milk?

I use canned unsweetened coconut milk that is available in our grocery store (A Taste of Thai Coconut Milk, 13.5 fl oz). I freeze it in a shallow pan so that I can easily break it up into pieces as I weigh it.

I use two types of lye for my shaving soap. This recipe is 40% NaOH lye. The NaOH (Sodium hydroxide) is what most folks use for bath soap. I also use 60% KOH lye, Potassium Hydroxide, that is usually used in liquid soap recipes, but it is highly recommended in shaving soap recipes because it helps the lather needed for loading up a shaving brush and lathering up your skin for a shave. LOL, all I know is that this produces a wonderful, luxurious & protective soap for shaving. The 90% you see on the lye means it is 90% pure KOH. The KOH that I use is only 90% pure and the recipe calculator that I use compensates for that. I use http://soapee.com for my recipe calculator. Here is what I have:
Total Water Weight 285 grams
Total NaOH Weight 38.8 grams
Total KoH Weight 90.6 grams at 90% purity
Total Lye Weight 129.4 grams
Total Oil Weight 750 grams
Lye Concentration 31.2%
NaOH / KOH Ratio 40% / 60%
Water : Lye Ratio 2.203 : 1
Saturated : Unsaturated 59 : 41

I hope this is helpful. Maybe someone more knowledgeable than I am, can chip in and help you with this too.

 

[psfred]

I have not found anything about castor oil that would incline me to include it in shaving soap. I have not tried to replace coconut oil with castor yet, although that's a possibility someday when I use up the two decade supply of soap I already have.

Initially the high castor soap I made had poor lather, but after some aging it's pretty similar to my tallow soaps, and not enough different to go to the trouble of weighing out another oil in a batch.

Ditto for bath soap, all my soaps lather very nicely, I can't tell a difference between similar ones with and without castor.

Give it a try and see, it won't hurt unless you use way too much. The great joy of making your own soap is that you can make whatever you like and know it's good stuff.

 

[DeeAnna]

If you used a whole can of the Taste of Thai product in your shave soap, I estimate you added 55 grams of coconut oil to the batch. If you don't account for that fat in your recipe, your superfat may be quite a bit higher than you might want. Some coconut milks have even more fat than this one, so it's always wise to check this.

more: https://classicbells.com/soap/nutritionLabel.html

 

[Flyrod77]

If you used a whole can of the Taste of Thai product in your shave soap, I estimate you added 55 grams of coconut oil to the batch. If you don't account for that fat in your recipe, your superfat may be quite a bit higher than you might want. Some coconut milks have even more fat than this one, so it's always wise to check this.

more: https://classicbells.com/soap/nutritionLabel.html

Thanks, that is a great point. I didn't use the entire can. I should have explained that better. The recipe called for a total water weight of 285 grams, so I used that amount of frozen coconut milk. LOL, I love frozen coconut milk and confess that I ate the remaining ice pieces. But you are right, that does make the superfat higher.

I shave with this every day with wicked-sharp straight razors (one is a Japanese Kamisori straight razor... nothing sharper). It is critically important to have a great shaving soap/cream. This recipe produces the best that I have ever experienced. I don't think I will ever change it. For me, anyway, it is perfect. I could never be satisfied with a purchased shave soap after using this. It is thick and luxurious (it even smells heavenly). I actually look forward to shaving in the mornings now. So relaxing and peaceful.

DeeAnna, I'm slow on the uptake sometimes
I was just thinking that even though I don't use coconut oil in this recipe, the coconut milk may be adding the oil properties through the use of the milk. I knew it was adding to a large superfat, and my goal was to add extra moisturizing to the soap - but maybe it's also adding other characteristics to the soap. I never considered that. LOL, I feel like that old saying about how even a blind squirrel sometimes finds the acorn. I'm pretty new to making soap, yet I feel like I stumbled upon a good recipe here. I just did a lot of trial and error to get there. Plenty of error on the journey though

 

[DeeAnna]

When my then 8-year-old stepson caught his first bluegill (a small fish), he was so excited. He pleaded with his dad to get the fish mounted so he could hang his trophy on the wall. It was awful cute to see him so happy, but his dad and I had a good chuckle (out of his earshot) at his abundance of enthusiasm over an average-sized bluegill.

Maybe you've stumbled on the holy grail of shave soap recipes here, but my guess is, as you gain more experience, you may learn your "fish" is not quite such an amazing trophy as you now think. Again, this is just a guess here and I'm quite willing to be proved wrong, but I do see newer soapers saying things like this fairly often in this forum. I felt the same way about my first batches of soap, both bathing soap and shave soap, but I learned more about the nuances, my opinion changed.

On an nuts-and-bolts issue -- Don't be too quick to raise your superfat, especially if you haven't thought it out clearly before you do. If you haven't tested the recipe at 5% superfat, how do you KNOW you need more superfat? Higher superfat reduces lather, it reduces the cleansing ability of the soap, and it may alter the skin feel after the soap is rinsed off, but superfat doesn't actually moisturize.

edit: I can't quite reconstruct the superfat for the recipe that includes the extra oil from the coconut milk. You may want to recalculate the recipe as-made to see what the superfat really is in this soap. My guesstimate is around 35%, and that's really awfully high. Given that I'm not sure I have the right info, it would be best if you did the work yourself to confirm.

 

[Flyrod77]

When my then 8-year-old stepson caught his first bluegill (a small fish), he was so excited. He pleaded with his dad to get the fish mounted so he could hang his trophy on the wall. It was awful cute to see him so happy, but his dad and I had a good chuckle (out of hi s earshot) at his abundance of enthusiasm over an average-sized bluegill.

I suspect you are 100 percent right. It is probably more bluegill here than I realize. Thanks for your help this first year of my "fishing" - it has sure been fun learning how to make my own soap. It is exciting, and in many ways I am still as excitable as a little boy. My wife teases me about this. I think my wife and I are both that way. One of the things about growing old surprised me. I was surprised that I never lost that excitement about even the simple things of life. Didn't expect old age to be this way but thankful the good Lord allowed it to happen.

 

[Flyrod77]

Last weekend I made a new batch of this shaving soap. After thinking about it a bit I thought I'd follow-up with one last comment on this recipe in case anyone would find this thread someday in search results as they were looking for a good but simple shaving soap recipe. It has been over a year now since I first made this recipe. I feel like I understand a lot more now about soap making at this point after having made soap the last few years. This recipe was the result of trying to find a simple easy to make shaving soap with fewer ingredients - that still produced a better product than what I can buy. I do have sensitive skin so I am picky about my shaving soap. I use this soap every day except for a few times I had to travel and didn't pack it for the trip (big mistake). After a year of using this soap I still feel like it is the best shaving experience I have had with shaving soap. I did decide to change one thing in the recipe though. I use water instead of coconut milk now. Other than that it's still the same recipe with the 4 oils. I've been shaving for over 50 years now and have tried countless shaving soaps and creams - and no question this is the best experience I have found for everyday shaving with sensitive skin.

Regardless of the shaving soap I use I have found that shaving sensitive skin is better if I shave right after I step out of the shower. It does make a huge difference if I do this for my pre-shave prep. I also use organic extra-virgin olive oil as a pre-shave conditioner on my face before I lather up for the shave. I just wet my face with warm water and then massage in a bit of the olive oil. I see a dermatologist twice a year for my skin and I had to laugh when she asked me what skin conditioner I used because my skin was looking great... I was embarrassed to tell her my "conditioner" was just organic olive oil. But I guess people have used olive oil to condition skin for thousands of years now, so maybe I'm not completely nuts

Anyway, this is my "report" back on this recipe after a year of using it daily. Take care.

 

[Bladesmith]

Thanks for posting the update. I would likely have never seen this otherwise. I'm a pretty new soaper myself and recently made the original songwind? shave soap. It's been great but I've also been curious about adjustments and have been thinking up a couple experiments. I may give this a shot.

 

[FlawlessFraigality]

I'm just reporting back on how this recipe turned out

Spoiler

I was stunned by how well this recipe turned out. It exceeded my expectations by a long shot. My hope was that this shaving soap would:

1. Be creamy and conditioning rather than drying (no coconut oil).
2. Not have thin overly bubbly lather, but more thick lather.
3. Use fewer oils than my original shaving soap, that just had too many oils.

This hot process recipe had:
40% Stearic
20% Castor Oil
20% Shea Butter
20% Palm Oil

60/40 KOH/NaOH(90%) lye ratio

I used 100% coconut milk replacement for the water. I used 10% glycerine after the cook, when I added my fragrance oil. And at that time, I added an addtional 1.5% Meadowfoam oil... I had some extra and just thought I'd add it in for extra superfat (over the 5% superfat the recipe already had). And I realize the coconut milk must have added to the superfat also.

For fragrance oil I used these oils I have from Brambleberry:
Mostly I used the, Sandalwood Vanilla (I love this fragrance)
About 25% of the FO was, Lavender & Cedar (I just like this one too)
I had a free sample of their Peppermint oil and added a tiny amount... maybe 5% because it has a strong scent. These three oils together made a wonderful scent for shaving soap. It just smells amazing in the morning when I'm shaving (my wife likes the aroma of my shaving soap a lot).

This is an easy recipe to make... in the past I've found high stearic acid recipes to be a bit challenging for me. But this one was a breeze to make. I did try to keep the temperatures close to the 170-degrees or less so it wouldn't adversely affect the Shea Butter.

I made a small sample size to try this morning when I shaved, but will let the rest of the soap cure for a couple months (LOL, if I can resist the urge to use it before that). But today I shaved with the sample soap just to see how it turned out. It is AMAZING shaving soap. It quickly produces a lot of creamy and dense lather. It feels sooooooo good using it. I shave with an old school double-edge razor with extremely sharp Feather blades. With this soap, the razor just glides smoothly over my face as I shave. I have very sensitive and dry skin that gets razor irritation easily, so that's why I was fanatical about not using anything that would dry my skin (coconut oil) and I wanted to seriously condition my skin. After my shave today, I was amazed by how my skin felt. It felt really good - zero dryness.

I hope I'm not being obnoxiously excited about this, but I feel like I hit the "Mother Load" gold strike with this recipe. At least for my personal use. I realize different people like different shaving soap attributes. But this one hit the mark with a bullseye for me. Thanks everyone, for your help here. I appreciate it.

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View attachment 27206

I have very sensitive skin (being relentlessly ginger and all..) and my first shaving soap batch, as seen below, was good but did leave my face feeling a little tight.

I have been looking for a sensitive skin friendly soap for long time so I am very grateful that you shared your findings. Thank you! ̶I̶f̶ ̶I̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶o̶n̶l̶y̶ ̶u̶s̶e̶ ̶N̶a̶O̶H̶,̶ ̶w̶a̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶i̶n̶s̶t̶e̶a̶d̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶c̶o̶c̶o̶n̶u̶t̶ ̶m̶i̶l̶k̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶s̶k̶i̶p̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶g̶l̶y̶c̶e̶r̶i̶n̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶M̶e̶a̶d̶o̶w̶f̶o̶a̶m̶ ̶e̶n̶t̶i̶r̶e̶l̶y̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶r̶e̶c̶i̶p̶e̶ ̶w̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶s̶e̶ ̶c̶h̶a̶n̶g̶e̶s̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶a̶ ̶b̶i̶g̶ ̶n̶e̶g̶a̶t̶i̶v̶e̶ ̶e̶f̶f̶e̶c̶t̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶e̶n̶d̶ ̶r̶e̶s̶u̶l̶t̶ ̶o̶r̶ ̶d̶o̶ ̶o̶k̶a̶y̶?̶

Edit: I found what I was asking about in one of your previous posts in the thread.