Need some help from experienced shave soap makers

[PatrickH]

Hello everyone. I was hoping I may get some help from a few HP shaving soap makers.
I will be making a HP dual lye shaving soap in 1lb batches.
While trying to calculate all my ingredients and percentages on Soapcalc, I have no base range on where to formulate my recipe numbers for shaving soap, so it makes it more difficult for me to come up with a recipe..
I have a couple questions for experienced shaving soap makers out there who may have a minute.
Not looking for recipes or exact ratios because i want to develop my own recipe and not work from someone else's. I have a basic understanding and range I do need to be in, but not in every category on soapcalc numbers.
Now I do have a purchased shave soap that is amazing, so I am using that as my goal. If I can get close to or even make better than it, I would be more then happy with the results., but far lesser would be a waste as that is not my goal.
Anyway, my questions are.
Using Palm oil as my main oil. What is the minimum amount of stearic acid that should be added in my shaving soap recipe?
I will be adding a few other oils and butters with 3% SF and 3% SF after the cook with a oil and a butter. I just don't know if I should have atleast 25% or atleast 40% and no more then what % on Palm or Stearic acid. I just dont have any clue on the base range as I can not find anything on the internet. Too much Palm over % would be very skin irritating or any is fine or? Just don't know.. My girlfriend will also be using it and I don't want it to irritate her.
I cant really compare to someone else's recipe because I have no idea if what they made is even good or not, so that is why Im trying to just make my own recipe I create.
I'm also not sure what number ranges I should be staying in or not go over. Kinda like it's ok to be within 15 to 30 on specific quality or acid type, but never go 40 and above or less then 10 kinda thing.
Ans is there also a % that is so low, that it would even make any difference, say using something as low as 1% or 3% or, could such a low percentage make a difference in the initial recipe? or anything lower then % be a waste?.
I mean, I kinda know and I'm almost there at being able to make my own recipe, but there is just a few key things I need to know before I can confirm my recipe and actually make it.
I know I may need to fine tune after my first batch, but I'm trying to get my base batch so I have a good shave soap to work from.
I'm posting this same question in a few places to hopefully get more responses. Many times, especially on forums, there is just 1 person giving information and I really just don't know what that persons experience is, how good their soap is or anything about them, even though they could be making a amazing shave soap, I just don't know, so I would like to gather up all the information I can from different people and compare them all together to get my general ranges and understandings.
I appreciate anyone's help and info they might be able to share with me. I spent many many many hours and days of readings, I'm just stuck on these couple things.. :crazy:

 

[Britannic]

Songwind's shaving soap thread and Silver Fox's shaving soap recipe are excellent resources. I developed my favourite recipe using those as a reference.

I aim for a palmitic + stearic acid profile to total 60% with at least 40% coming from stearic.

 

[shunt2011]

As above ^^^ Read songwinds thread and then go from there. That's how many of us got to our final destination. It's a lot of tweaking and testing for sure. Took me about a year to get it just right.

 

[PatrickH]

Ok thank you. I will read them both.

 

[toxikon]

Try the Soapee calc, works great and supports dual-lye.

This was my first recipe and it worked great.

• 50% Stearic Acid
• 35% Coconut Oil
• 15% Avocado Oil
• 5% SF
• 100% KOH
• 25% Lye Concentration
Additives:
Glycerin = 15% oil weight
Sodium lactate = 1% oil weight

 

[psfred]

Patrick:

You are overthinking this.

You need the palmitic plus stearic acids in the fatty acid profile to be more than 50%, and oleic around 15%. No linoleic or linolenic acids. Castor if you want, but if you use it don't use coconut oil unless the total of castor and coconut is less than 15% (easy but foamy large bubble lather).

I get the best results with stearic plus palmitic around 55%, above 60% you get Williams, modern version -- excellent shaves, but hard to lather.

Palmitic and stearic acids behave enough alike you don't need to worry about exact ratios.

My best recipes so far look like this:

50% stearic aicd
30% lard or tallow
10% coconut oil
5% shea butter
5% cocoa butter

5% superfat, half the shea and cocoa added after the cook

10% of oil weight of glycerine.

You can easily replace the lard or tallow with palm and get very close to what you want.

It's soap, not a rocket trip to Jupiter. Come up with a couple variations and make 100 gr batches if you can (it's easy, just use hot oil and hot lye, cooks in minutes) and see what you like.

I'd not make a pound of any of them until you find one you like really well.

The good thing is that as long as you use significant amounts of stearic acid, you will get very nice shaving soap no matter what else you put in.