palm vs tallow in shave soap

[Obsidian]

Can anyone tell me how palm compares to using tallow in shave soap?

I recently made a simple batch of shave soap using stearic acid, coconut and a little coco butter. Its absolutely terrible, no slip and the lather fades quicker than it should.
The two times I've used it, I've mangled my legs. My tallow based soap is great though and I thought about making a 100% tallow soap to rebatch with the bad soap.
Problem is, I don't want to render any tallow. Its messy, time consuming and I'm lazy. I do have palm oil so I'm wondering if it would work instead?

Not that big of a deal to toss the bad batch but I'm sure it can be saved with the right additives.

 

[psfred]

I took a quick look at SoapCalc, and you should be OK using palm instead of tallow (might try a small batch though, just in case). Palm is mostly palmitic, tallow is mostly stearic in the saturated fatty acids, and they have similar oleic levels.

How much stearic did you use in the original recipe? I have a suspicion that it's possible to use too much -- modern Williams Mug Soap, for instance. Hard to lather, lather collapses easily, but super slick when you get it wet enough.

 

[Obsidian]

Thanks, I'll try just a little batch at first. Might also toss in some avocado oil to help balance it out a bit more. The original recipe has a lot of stearic at 76%. It was a recipe I saw someone recommend so I tried it.

 

[earlene]

Obsidian, perhaps add a bit of lanolin? I use lanolin in my shaving soap, although it's a liquid soap and not a solid. And since I started using it for my legs, I have never once cut myself shaving. And that used to be a regular occurrence. I've been using it for about 2 years now. I do add lanolin to a couple of my bar soaps, and have tested using them for shaving my legs without any cuts as well.

 

[psfred]

76% is a bit high, I think. My highest stearic was 62% of fatty acids, and it was getting difficult to lather well at that point.

Lanolin is a nice addition, too.

 

[Nao]

I know someone in "the big thread" tested this, (efficacious gentleman maybe?) and the conclusion was that palm worked ok but not quite as good as tallow or lard, if I remember correctly.