Shaving Soap, help please

[lovinglife]

I have been going over all the shaving soap threads trying to find a recipe and I see some ingredients but for the life of me can't really find a recipe. If I do then I usually don't have something listed and as new to this hobby I don't feel comfortable winging it. I have most of the basic oils and some not so basic, I have stearic acid coming and have both kinds of lye, so please can someone give me a good beginner recipe to start with? Please???? I have CP down and I am comfortable making that, made probably 20 or 30 batches so I feel somewhat comfortable making it, just using two kinds of lye and a crockpot is new to me. Oh and I use goat milk as a liquid if that matters. My husband has a birthday in a couple months and I would like to surprise him with a true wet shaving soap.

Thanks!
Michele

 

[IrishLass]

Here are two (the second link is an actual shave soap tutorial that gives you a recipe and takes you through the whole process beginning to end:

http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=34264&highlight=shaving

http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=53981&highlight=shaving


IrishLass

 

[MySoapyHeart]

Sorry I don`t have any specific recipe or advice to give you as I haven`t made shaving soap yet, I can`t get a hold of the correct lye (KOH) for shaving soap, here in Norway.

But anyway, have you read THIS thread? It is huge, but really usefull.

What about THIS one? Have great links to a step-by-step tut WITH a recipe that surely will help you on your way.

ETA: Sorry, IL beat me to it, seems we linked to the same links. lol!

 

[lovinglife]

I read all those, I don't have glycerin or lanolin and the first one just saw coconut oil, not really a recipe. I need something more beginner like, for example:
10 oz Coconut Oil
10 oz Sunflower seed oil
20 Lard
20 oz goat milk
you get the idea. on this lye calculator for both lye types, do you dissolve the different lye in different containers then add to the oils?

the woes of the beginners..sorry..

 

[DeeAnna]

Great minds think alike! :mrgreen:

 

[shunt2011]

Unfortunately, you really need glycerin to make a good shave soap, in my opinion. You can get it at most pharmacies. The lanolin you can leave out. You can run any recipe through a lye calculator. Switch out Lard for the Tallow. Just you check it for the proper amount of KOH. You can also make the recipe in the first link. Just Stearic Acid, Coconut etc..... People aren't otherwise going to give you their hard worked recipes. We all started with the basics and went from there.

 

[DeeAnna]

But your "beginner" recipe isn't shave soap. It's maybe a decent bath soap with the lard and sunflower, but not good for shaving. If you really want to make a good shave soap, you have to alter your thinking about what constitutes an acceptable recipe and what ingredients you will need to use.

The first recipe you mention -- Songwind's I assume -- is not just coconut oil. It's coconut oil plus stearic acid. That is about as simple of a basic, good shave soap as it gets. Lee Bussey's recipe with lanolin and tallow is a very nice alternative, but even it uses added stearic acid.

If you don't want to use stearic acid to increase the stearic soap content in your recipe, you will need to formulate a recipe with a high % of tallow and/or high stearic butters (cocoa butter, etc.)

I only use KOH in my shave soap, but if you really want to mix KOH and NaOH, you can just dissolve them together in the same water. Just add the lyes slowly one at a time. KOH can bubble up a bit as it dissolves.

 

[Seawolfe]

I'm sorry, but if you need an exact recipe, and arent comfortable with the lye calculators, I don't think you are ready for a shaving soap with 2 types of lye.

 

[Obsidian]

Shave soap really needs glycerin. Saponified stearic doesn't produced glycerin so you need to add it, not only does it help with lather but it helps moisturize the skin. You can find glycerin at Micheal's hobby store with the M&P soap stuff or at a pharmacy.

this is the recipe I use. You can replace the palm kernel oil with coconut, just run the recipe through a calc again. I use 100% KOH since I put my soap in bowls. I can't remember how much glycerin I added and I forgot to write it down, can anyone give a good amount for my recipe?
http://www.evernote.com/l/ANgFEzd7JjhOLb6Jnngflu2CuUYDefJz9_Y/

If you don't have tallow then you need to have another look at the very first link Irishlass posted, there is a complete recipe in the first post thats just stearic and coconut, very simple.

 

[IrishLass]

That looks like a very nice shave recipe, Obsidian. Your mileage may vary, but for what it's worth, I use 20% glycerin in mine. I started with 10% in my original shave formula that contained only tallow and butters for my stearic content, but when I tweaked things around to add in a goodly amount of stearic, I increased the glycerin up to 20%.


IrishLass

 

[LBussy]

What all them ladies said ^^^^^ !

 

[lovinglife]

Ok, that wasn't a recipe, that was just an example of something I could actually follow. So maybe I came to the wrong place, I thought people came here to help each other learn. I have never used both kinds of lye, not sure how to do that, I can see I am over my head and maybe I best just find another place for help, didn't realize I was stepping on toes here. I don't have time to spend hours studying up on the proper way to use both kinds of lye together, thought I would get some help.

Sorry.

 

[LBussy]

Short of making it for you, I am not sure how much simpler we can make it. At least one of the links provided give you a recipe, steps to follow, pictures, and even a video or two of a successful recipe. If you don't have time for that I'm not sure what we can do to speed it up for you. A couple folks have already hinted that using two lyes is not needed. Many of us also prefer soap using only KOH so it can be that much easier.

Seriously, what's missing?

 

[DeeAnna]

Hey there -- we ARE trying to help. If you feel we aren't being helpful, then please give us more information to go on. If all you want is to get started making shave soap without a lot of time invested, we've pointed you toward two recipes, and one is complete with step by step directions.

For example, can you explain why your recipe works for you:

10 oz Coconut Oil
10 oz Sunflower seed oil
20 Lard
20 oz goat milk

While Songwind's does not? --

48% coconut oil
52% stearic acid

".. I don't have time to spend hours studying up on the proper way to use both kinds of lye together, thought I would get some help. ..."

I already gave an answer to what I perceived your question was -- you just mix the two together to make the lye solution. If that's not the information you're wanting to know, then please explain what you have in mind, because I'm not understanding what you want to know.

 

[MySoapyHeart]

Ok, that wasn't a recipe, that was just an example of something I could actually follow. So maybe I came to the wrong place, I thought people came here to help each other learn. I have never used both kinds of lye, not sure how to do that, I can see I am over my head and maybe I best just find another place for help, didn't realize I was stepping on toes here. I don't have time to spend hours studying up on the proper way to use both kinds of lye together, thought I would get some help.

Sorry.

Dear Michele, you said; "I thought people came here to help each other learn".

Absolutely. 7 short minutes after you cried for help, IrishLass gave you 2 superb links to help you learn about the process of making shavingsoap. Have you checked them out yet? Because, one of the links had a specic recipe and step-by-step instructions on how to understand what is special with shavingsoap as supose to regular bars of soap.

I mean, if you are comfortable with the CP method, that means you took the time to learn it, and how to produce bars of soap. You can do it. Why don`t just do the same with the shavingsoap, and research the links we gave you. After all, you have to start somewhere, like you did with first trying to make CP soaps, right? ; )

Click the links and get readin`, then you can decide if this is shaving soap is something you want to try.

If not, just make your husband some super special and lovely CP soap, just for him, with wonderfull scents that you know he will like.

 

[Navaria]

Ok, that wasn't a recipe, that was just an example of something I could actually follow. So maybe I came to the wrong place, I thought people came here to help each other learn. I have never used both kinds of lye, not sure how to do that, I can see I am over my head and maybe I best just find another place for help, didn't realize I was stepping on toes here. I don't have time to spend hours studying up on the proper way to use both kinds of lye together, thought I would get some help.

Sorry.

So if I'm understanding, you want a recipe with the number of oz of each oil, the amount of water, and the amount of (and type) of lye to use. Is this correct?
The problem is, we can't give you that. We don't know exactly what you're looking for in a shaving soap so it's hard to recommend an exact blend of oils. We can give general recommendations or tell you what has worked good for us. And we don't know what kind of mold you have, so we have no way of knowing how big of batch you need. That's why we use percents. That way you can take the recommendations and scale them up or down to suit your mold. We can't tell you exactly how much lye to use, because we don't know what oil qualities you're looking for. And even if we did, you would still need to run it through a lye calculator to verify everything. So you see, it's not that we don't want to help you, it's just that we really can't give you the level of help you're wanting.

 

[RobertBarnett]

LovingWife, don't get mad at us we are trying to help. We work hard putting our recipes together and perfecting them. Some of us sell our soaps other do not. It is hard for us to work so hard on our recipes just to give them away.

What has been posted here is enough to get you started. You are just going to have to work at.

[mod edit - I changed the link to the original piece by the person who actually did the work to create it. Please link to originals rather than direct copies where the original is still available] I have never made it and I do not know how well it works, but it is yours for whatever it is worth. I do hope it helps.

http://www.modernsoapmaking.com/the-best-wet-shaving-soap-recipe/

Robert

 

[IrishLass]

Aha- I think Navaria hit the nail on the head for us all....or at least for me, anyway.

Michele- it seems that we are tripping over the term 'soap recipe'. To sum it up briefly and simply, our definitions of the term are not the same as yours. To explain, instead of viewing soap formulas in terms of ounces/grams, I (and many others of us here) view soap recipes in terms of percentages......

So, when we see someone post that they made a shaving soap with 48% coconut oil, 52% stearic acid saponified with KOH, to us, that is a recipe. All we need to do in order to make a batch of soap with that recipe is type those percentages into SoapCalc, and then type in how big we want our batch to be, how much water we want to use, and what superfat % we want the batch to have.....then let SoapCalc figure the ounce/gram amounts of everything for us. As Navaria said, the things such as batch size, water/lye amount and superfat are impossible for us to share because we don't know how big your molds are or what level of superfat your skin prefers, etc... Those parts of the recipe can only be determined by you or whatever other individual soaper decides to try the recipe out, based on the equipment they have and their personal skin preferences.

Also- in regards to using dual lyes, it would help if you told us how much of each you wish to use. Most of us just use KOH, which makes a really nice croap-type of shave soap which is soft/pliable and can be smooshed into shave bowls or cups long after it has been made, which I find to be really convenient, but some of us do use dual lye. The amounts of each that one chooses to use, though, often vary from the amounts that others choose to use. Much depends on individual preferences. If you have a certain ratio of each that you have in mind that you'd like to try, it would help us greatly if you let us know what that ratio is, and then we can better help you from there.

Up until this fall/winter, I myself used varying amounts of dual lye, but my hubby and son are really liking the experimental croap I made with just KOH, so I think I'll be sticking to that, although I want to try making one more dual lye batch with a ratio I haven't used before (because I'm weird like that).


IrishLass

 

[lovinglife]

I am sorry I was cranky, being overworked at the moment, I have a few minutes in the mornings to spend on the computer, my little farm is in high gear with kidding and I work a full time job, commute two hours a day and still milk and feed everyone twice a day. With his birthday coming up I just got over excited to get his shave soap made as a surprise. He is a wet shaver and uses my regular soap so I thought it would be nice for him to have something fantastic just for shaving. I have round molds square molds log molds and if you think it would be better I can go do the thrift store and just pick up some small containers or cups to use, he travels a lot so he is gone 75% of the time and everything falls to me which is why I was short, think sleep deprived.... I understand how to use % in soap making, so no problems there, if just coconut oil works and isn't too drying I have lots of that, but do you mix the different lyes and milk separate then add both to the oils? Guess I just need to stay up late and do more reading, again, sorry for my unwarranted outburst.

 

[Obsidian]

I wouldn't use just coconut oil, it would be way too drying and not provide the slip a proper shaving soap needs. It seems you keep over looking the recipe of 48% coconut oil and 52% stearic acid or are you just not mentioning the stearic? Also, please try to find some glycerin, hubby's skin will thank you for it

This lye calculator will allow you to figure both types of lye but really, a 100% KOH save soap is nicer. You could find some nice bowls with lids for your hubby to use while traveling.
http://www.soapguild.org/lye-calc.php?action=calculate

You can mix both lyes with the same water, they won't react badly with each other. no need to do them separate.