My first shave soap (first soap ever) was...

[dennisn]

Not good. Functional in a pinch, but the lather was thin and it was very dry in post shave. I could literally hear the bubbles popping on my face. It's one redeeming quality was the slickness. It was very slick.

I would love some advice on the next batch. Here's what it looked like:

Here's the recipe. I was using 60/40 KOH/NaOH Lye using hot process. I also added 0.8 oz of glycerin about 40 minutes into the HP.

Thanks!

 

[IrishLass]

Welcome, Dennisn! :wave:

If you ask me, your coconut oil is much too high. Not only is it contributing to the drying effect post-shave, but it makes too much of the wrong kind of lather for a shaving soap (too light & fluffy and too quick to dissipate). I would drop it down to no more than 10% of your formula.

Also- it would help tremendously to increase the overall stearic/palmitic content. If you look at the fatty acid profile on your SoapCalc sheet, you'll see that the total stearic/palmitic combination sits at 33%. It would help things out to bump it up to at least 50% total. Besides providing your shave soap with a nice cushion, a high % of stearic/palmitic will help contribute to long-lasting, dense, slick lather.

You could do something along the lines of this (it bumps the total stearic/palmitic fatty acid content up to 50% in your formula):

34% stearic acid
26% tallow
20% castor oil
10% avocado oil
10% coconut oil

Superfat @ 8%
Add 10% glycerin ppo to your melted fats.
Use 80% NaOH and 20% NaOH instead of the 60/40 (for better ease of lathering)

You can even sub some coconut milk/cream in for part of your water for an extra boost of conditioning.

Anyway, that's how I would tweak it if it were me (based on what I've found to work in the shave croap that I make for my hubby).

Hopefully more will chime in soon with their input and opinions.


IrishLass

 

[Britannic]

I cribbed a ton of excellent advice from Songwind's shaving soap thread. I now only use KOH and still get a very firm puck after 4 weeks curing. I don't use any castor oil and aim for a Palmitic/Stearic fatty acid profile of around 60%, usually the Stearic is between 48-51% of the profile depending on the recipe. In the recipe proportions I keep my CO under 25%, Stearic above 45%, Tallow between 20-25% and then make up the balance with conditioning oils/butters with some reserved for SF after cooking and the batch is zap free. The lather is lusciously thick and with 15% glycerine added to the batter, holds tons of water, is really slick and doesn't strip the face. YMMV.

 

[DanielCoffey]

That shaving soap thread is a great read. The amounts I settled on in the end were as follows...

Stearic 45%, CO76 25%, Beef Tallow 20%, Lanolin 5%, Shea 5% all at 5% SF (reserving the Lanolin and Shea for the SF). 100% KOH at 33% in water. Essentials Oils 3% (Lavender, Rosemary, Mint). Glycerin at 11% of oils by weight. tetra-EDTA at 0.5% of batch weight. Hot Process.

It lasts beautifully well and doesn't leave me feeling dry.

 

[dennisn]

Wow! I wasn't sure I'd get a response as this was my first post here. All of these were extremely helpful! Thank you all very much!

Clarifying question about superfat: when using the hot process, when someone says "superfat at 8%" does that mean I add 1.28oz (8% of 16oz of oils) at the end of the hot process? If using glycerin, do you factor the glycerin into that 8%.

Sorry, I've gone from knowing absolutely nothing about soap to just enough to be dangerous in a week or so. I can see the addiction beginning here though. Helpful community, fun hobby, and I can't wait to enjoy a shave with my own soap.

 

[Britannic]

It's a percentage of oils. I use soapee.com and it actually computes the correct amount of super fat oils if you select the after cook checkbox. Glycerine is also a percentage of oils, I usually put in 15% if I'm using Stearic Acid.

 

[earlene]

Wow! I wasn't sure I'd get a response as this was my first post here. All of these were extremely helpful! Thank you all very much!

Clarifying question about superfat: when using the hot process, when someone says "superfat at 8%" does that mean I add 1.28oz (8% of 16oz of oils) at the end of the hot process? If using glycerin, do you factor the glycerin into that 8%.

Welcome, dennisn.

No, SF at 8% means change your number from 5 to 8 in your lye calculator. Your recipe is set to 5% SF. Just change that to 8%. It doesn't really matter if you add that 8% after the cook. Lye chooses what it chooses, so just put all the oils in at the beginning and you get your SF. No, you don't factor glycerin into the SF; it is not a fat and does not saponify.

 

[dennisn]

Tada! The light bulb just went off. The lye calculator essentially puts in enough lye to react with 95% of the oils if SF set at 5%.

I'm racing to the crockpot to give it another run.

 

[Britannic]

Tada! The light bulb just went off. The lye calculator essentially puts in enough lye to react with 95% of the oils if SF set at 5%.

I'm racing to the crockpot to give it another run.

When I'm making shaving soap, I compute enough lye to convert all my oil batch and then add the additional selected butters as super fat once the batch is cooked and zap free. The soapee.com calculator makes that easy as it has a checkbox to compute the 100% lye conversion and then gives the additional weight of oils to add after the cook.

 

[DanielCoffey]

Remember to allow your fresh batch of shaving soap a good couple of weeks to settle before you use it. Even though it is hot process and is technically "cooked", it will benefit from a rest. It is not a traditional bar of soap so a fortnight will be enough in my opinion.

Here is a little more reading for you... http://www.silverfoxcrafts.com/shaving-soap/ - a lovely blog with very useful pictures too!

EDIT : Oh, I forgot to mention - when you have had a shave, allow the soap to air dry for a while. Don't be too quick to pop the lid back on.

 

[dennisn]

Thanks again everyone! I'm blown away with the amount of input. I'll have to pay it forward once I know what I'm doing.

I made another small batch today with the modified recipe below. I haven't lathered the soap yet, but it looks a whole lot more like the soap I am used to buying from artisans.

With this recipe I used 5% SF with the base oil then did another 5% shea butter after cooking along with 10% glycerin.

Thanks @DanielCoffey for the link. That is a great site!

 

[KristaY]

http://www.silverfoxcrafts.com/shaving-soap/[/URL] - a lovely blog with very useful pictures too!

I was going to suggest Lee's blog! I made shaving soap yesterday using his recipe and method. If you haven't read through it yet, you should. As useful as Songwind's thread is, it's VERY long so info gets a bit lost in the reading. But it's definitely worth the time.

Your new batch looks great! Hopefully you get a soothing, moisturizing shave from it!

 

[dennisn]

I just did a quick hand lather (yeah, couldn't wait) and WOW! I'm really surprised at just how good the lather actually is. The scent is pretty killer too. I have paid for many soaps which are of less quality.

Yep. I'm hooked.

 

[psfred]

My recommendation is to ditch the avocado and castor oils. I have made several different recipes, but they are all pretty similar, my first one was
50% Stearic Acid
20% Lard
20% Coconut oil
10% Cocoa butter.

5% SF, reserved half the cocoa butter to add after the cook, 10% glycerin.

Second one was the same except my shea butter had arrived and I replaced half the cocoa butter with shea.

I've also used lanolin instead of the shea because a friend of mine likes Schafsmilch. Since then I've used 50% soy wax instead of stearic acid, and replaced the lard with tallow.

My last experiment was to use 20% castor oil. I don't like it, the lather falls apart before I can get the amount of water I want, and it leaves my face feeling sticky instead of slick. Less slip that the other recipes.

What you have may not be ideal for what I want, but even my "failure" castor soaps are as good as most of them out there, and the lard ones are as good as Haslinger.

Be careful, I eventually learned to do tiny (100 gr) batches, else you end up with decades worth of soap pretty fast. I'm guessing a 120 gram portion of any of my soaps (the weight I use for testing fragrances) will give me upwards of 400 shaves. When you get really good soap and add enough water to make it really slick, you find you don't need very much to shave with, just a thin coat of exceptionally slick persistent lather works perfectly.

Peter

 

[Britannic]

Psfred is right, castor oil is very soluble and excellent at making bigger bubbles quickly when combined with CO or similar - a characteristic that isn't useful for shaving lather. I never use it and you'll also notice that most if not all commercial shaving soaps don't use it either.

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

It's not a complete no-go, but your whole recipe has to be formulated in a way that works with or allows the castor to work. Many great soapers on here use it and it has had impressive feedback. But it really isn't an ingredient to just add and expect it to work

 

[DanielCoffey]

I made four 160g tubs back in April and am about half way through my first one. I only shave every other day so I reckon I will get about 120 shaves per tub. I am finding I can use less and less though, so I may get more out of it once I settle into a routine.

 

[dennisn]

I shaved with the soap this morning. I really couldn't believe how good it was. I will play around with the suggestions here like moving away from castor oil, however I believe the increased stearic acid and KOH percentage made a HUGE difference. I have used many different soaps including mainstays like Proraso as well as great artisans like Catie's Bubbles. The lather of this soap was arguably as good as some of the best I've used. It was super thick, very slick and enough volume for a 3 pass shave without thinning out. The main weaknesses in comparison to a professional soap are scent and presentation. I used a Lavender and Peppermint essential oil mix and while pleasant, didn't have that addictive smell of some artisan soaps I've used.

Thanks for the suggestions here! I didn't think it would be possible to have such a successful outcome on a 2nd attempt. This thread has served as a crash course. I had read enough to get started, but your suggestions have really helped me understand!

 

[Britannic]

Great job dennisn, now you can create the exact recipe you like that works for you. I deliberately made recipes that the B&B forum disagreed with and ended up with something that works wonderfully for myself, friends and family. Comparing my shaving soap with Tabac, which is a favourite of mine, I find my soap out performs it easily. I also figured out, that my soap would be at least 4x more expensive. I even found that some so called mediocre razor blades perform better, because of the deep cushion of hydrated lather my soap produces.