May I ask what the difference is between cream shaving soap vs a dual lye or regular shaving soap?
The feel of it? The suds and foam? I have only made shaving soap (dual lye and with only NaOH) so I don`t know how it feels like compared to those.
Cream shaving soap is like what is available in either a squeeze tube or some also come in a jar with lid. Check out Proraso Italian shaving soaps, they make cream soaps in either tubes or jars (pre-shave cream) and also solid pucks.
The cream soap lathers faster but it is not as dense as a puck type soap. More bubbles to the lather. Although the cream soap I'm working on should be much denser lather than Proraso. I first tried Proraso when I first picked up a double-edge razor and the consistency out of the tube was similar to a thin toothpaste.
Yeah... I don't like that term either, but apparently it was coined by Catherine Failor back in 2000 or 2001 when she published a book about making cream soaps. She was the first, from what I understand, to give recipes and directions on making cream soaps. That book is now out of print and finding a recipe or the method is like finding something akin to the Holy Grail. The recipe / method I found was by a lady who used to belong to a Yahoo Group for people making cream soap, but it was a "secret" group so to speak and apparently getting a membership was similar to joining Skull & Bones at Yale University! LOL!
That Yahoo Group is no longer in existence so I guess she won't be hunted down now. She speaks of her mistakes and a couple of FUBARS too. I used the Soapmaking Friend Calculator here on this forum rather than her amounts for the lye amounts. Her NaOH was spot on but the KOH was off by about 20% lower than the calculator here recommended.
The method and recipe can be found at:
How to Make Soap "The Whipped Cream Method"
I used high oleic sunflower oil instead of olive oil, added 5% Sorbitol in the water phase and Sodium Lactate in the Super Cream Phase. Also I added titanium dioxide to increase the whitening.
"Rotted" is term referring to where after the soap is whipped, similar to whipped cream or pudding, it left to "rot" or settle down for several weeks to a creamy not a foamy consistency. It doesn't rot in the sense of like a rotten apple or banana, just that term was used signify to process of the cream soap changing character so to speak. I'm sure I'll be corrected by members here on the forum if I'm wrong.