Shave Soap contenders-comparing SA and PA

Johnez · Feb 27, 2023

Hey all, I plan on making 2 shave soaps to compare the differences between palmitic acid heavy and stearic acid heavy recipes. I've managed to formulate two recipes with roughly the same FA profiles, save of course for the SA and PA numbers.

As with many things in life where compromise has to be made I'm not completely happy with the end result. Particularly with the fact that combined SA+PA totals on both are in the low 50s (I prefer 60+), that the bubbly lather number is so low (I've never made a shave soap recipe this low) and the fact that oleic acid is so high (which may compound a lather issue). The purpose of sharing the recipes before hand is to ask more knowledgeable soapers if this experiment will even be worth conducting. I'm afraid the recipes might not be optimal for a decent shave, let alone a good comparison.

Kcryss · Feb 27, 2023

I'm not one of the more experienced soapers, but I would love to play!

As I don't see any animal fats, I assume you want something vegan?
I dropped the kokum butter way down and removed OO - way too much oleic
Bumped the CO to get a bit more lauric/myristic.
Now the really hard question - how to calculate the actual SA vs PA. My brain if way too fried right now to even attempt complicated calculations. This is where the smart people are needed.
That fully hydrogenated soybean oil would really come in handy here! lol
Edit: This one is for the SA experiment

And for PA
With Japan Wax and below without. The math on PA is a little easier (but not precise by any means) - can pretty much say half of what is listed as SA belongs to PA.

Kcryss · Feb 28, 2023

@Johnez I'm so sorry, I just realized that all I did was make new recipes. Disregard the previous post if it was way outside of your ask. If I inadvertently offended please accept my apology.

Johnez · Feb 28, 2023

Kcryss said:
@Johnez I'm so sorry, I just realized that all I did was make new recipes. Disregard the previous post if it was way outside of your ask. If I inadvertently offended please accept my apology.

That's ok, and no need to apologize. I probably should have included more of a back story on why I formulated the recipes the way I did-and big reason was having difficulty finding a good stearic acid source. The reason I picked palm oil for the palmitic was that it meshed well with kokum and wasn't overly heavy in palmitic. If I went with Japan wax I'd have to fill the rest of the FAs out.

Johnez · Mar 5, 2023

Well guys it looks like I'm going to be able to compare SA vs PA without having to compromise anything. Japan wax and 92% stearic acid (really 92% SA) is on the way.