Shave Soap Super Butter Shave soap

[Johnez]

Hey all it's just another shave soap thread wheeee! I just made up a 100 gram microbatch. Description and details below, I'll be updating on performance and notes. First note: unrefined Shea smell has overpowered my FO. It's kind of a bummer, I should have tried this with refined, but figured the smell would go away. I'll update if the smell lightens.

This soap was brought about by a challenge issued by @Nav (a slight exaggeration) asked the question of if a shave soap had been made with a large amount of butters.

Post in thread 'My first shaving soap is a success!' My first shaving soap is a success!

I've not seen one posted here so I decided to make a super heavy butters recipe with Shea. I originally wanted to try a recipe with the majority as butter for curiosity sake, however did eventually scale it down to 39% to keep my stearic/palmitic acid numbers as high as I can and also to include enough coconut and castor to have a similar bubble number to my previous recipe. I prefer this route to better gauge the effect of butters and to limit the variables. Below is the recipe:

I have found recipe #3 in Carrie Siebert's "How To Make Shave Soap" has 40% in 3 butters (Shea, cocoa, kokum) and will give that a go one day after trying the various butters on their own. For future soaps I anticipate using my new recipe for each individual butter I have (mango, kokum, sal, cocoa) to get a better feel for the properties and benefits.

 

[AliOop]

Excellent, thanks for jumping into this so quickly, and do keep us posted.

As an aside, I recently had a similar experience with my unrefined shea butter (the scent of which I love on its own) not playing nicely with my choice of scents. It definitely overpowers floral and citrus notes, and seems to pair better with things like OMH, green, coffee/chocolate, or musk.

 

[Johnez]

Excellent, thanks for jumping into this so quickly, and do keep us posted.

As an aside, I recently had a similar experience with my unrefined shea butter (the scent of which I love on its own) not playing nicely with my choice of scents. It definitely overpowers floral and citrus notes, and seems to pair better with things like OMH, green, coffee/chocolate, or musk.

Yep, I think you shared that....I should have taken note. :-/

Not looking forward to the cure time.
I'm thinking about doubling the batch next time so I can have a batch to test a week or 2 out and and a batch to let cure for 4 weeks.

 

[Johnez]

The soap is a curing, very boringly lol. I've noticed this in other shave soaps, but am curious as to what's going on here. Eventually this is going to turn completely white if the past is an indication. It has a slight yellowish tinge from the soap as it originally finished, and spreading white spots. Would this be stearic/palmitic spots? Is this a sign of poor emulsion/mixing. This time around I did forget to match oil and lye water temps and of course paid the toll when it near solidified instantly. I beat the heck out of it and thankfully was able to thoroughly mix it.

Edit: thankfully the shea smell has lightened up and isn't so overpowering.

 

[Johnez]

First test: Initial impressions

We'll start with a pic:

First lather wasn't the best. Loaded brush and it became apparent in my bowl that I did not load enough first go around. I had to reload after whipping a paltry amount of lather. This soap needs to be loaded a bit more than my previous soaps. In addition I had to add more water and then I goofed by adding too much water which thinned it out a *tad* too much. Every wetshaver has done it, and there's no going back lol.

With the screwed up lather I basically binned any idea of judging the soap. We'll try again in 2-3 days. Good thing is the shave actually was decent.

 

[Johnez]

3rd shave, let us again start with a pic:

Lather:
It took me three tries to get the lather down, today I finally got it in the first shot. It takes quite a load time. I've learned if it looks like enough with this soap go for a bit longer. Also not to shake the brush excessively, ya need a little more water with this soap.

Shave:
This soap feels surprisingly pedestrian. With 39% Shea butter and the vaunted "unsaponifiables" I guess I was expecting more than what I got. The shave was a decent one with all the minimal demands met. The lather piled on thick and did not dissipate. The razor was not impeded and glided. Zero difficulty in passing the razor. Third pass against the grain was a slightly harsh experience, likely because there was minimal residual slickness that makes "blade buffing" (using short repeated strokes over the same area of skin using residual soap) difficult if not impossible. As a result chin area was not shaved as closely as I wanted even after 4 passes.

Notes:
After 3 tries and even having the lady of the house give it a shot, we've all been left disappointed. "Why?" is the difficult question to answer. On paper the numbers look good, stearic+palmitic is at 63 which is more than the basic minimum of 50 required, but not overly so. Oleic is 20, perhaps slightly concerning, some of the more successful soaps I've made have had lower oleic numbers. Cleansing number (and coconut oil amount) is fairly low and I have had higher numbers in the past. I really have no idea why this soap is as lacking as it is. I'm curious if anyone else has had this sort of experience with a high butters shave soap, perhaps @Nav can give a word or two on experiences.

 

[Becky1024]

While I love Shea in my regular soap, I don’t like it in my shaving soap. I think the unsaponables break the lather and affect glide. Try some tallow in your recipe if you are ok with animal fats. The glide is amazing!

 

[Johnez]

While I love Shea in my regular soap, I don’t like it in my shaving soap. I think the unsaponables break the lather and affect glide. Try some tallow in your recipe if you are ok with animal fats. The glide is amazing!

This is quite interesting and the first I've heard of this-thanks for sharing. I've tried 15% with no problem, perhaps there's a sweet spot and an upper limit where more doesn't equal better.

 

[Johnez]

4th shave notes-blooming:

Tried blooming the soap (basically soaking the soap in hot water 5 or so minutes) this go around. Resulted in easier lather and more soap on the brush. Interestingly the slickness improved, unfortunately the shave didn't improve it actually got worse. Wondering if the higher oleic amount than normal is causing issues here. The feel of this soap reminds me of my super high RBO soap, even though that soap wasn't especially high in oleic it did have a high combined oleic+linoleic amount. Both soaps had a very harsh feel by the third pass and resulted in weepers.

Will let my face rest 3 days before giving it another shot. After that it'll probably sit on my shelf till another soap comes out of the cure. I do not want to deal with this soap any more, am sort of afraid of testing my special high stearic soap now lol.

 

[Nav]

I've yet to make a very high butter soap but I had made a soap with around 30% cocoa butter and it performs better than most soaps I've used.

Perhaps shea butter causes some issues with the lather?

When I get home in May, I'm going to make an 80% butter soap (kokum, mango, cocoa). It's going to be 57% creamy and 35% conditioning (oleic).

I'm excited to see how it goes.

 

[Becky1024]

I've yet to make a very high butter soap but I had made a soap with around 30% cocoa butter and it performs better than most soaps I've used.

Perhaps shea butter causes some issues with the lather?

When I get home in May, I'm going to make an 80% butter soap (kokum, mango, cocoa). It's going to be 57% creamy and 35% conditioning (oleic).

I'm excited to see how it goes.

I bet it will make a very nice shave soap. It will probably come to trace VERY quickly. I stick blend mine very little, mostly hand stir.

 

[Nav]

I bet it will make a very nice shave soap. It will probably come to trace VERY quickly. I stick blend mine very little, mostly hand stir.

I've realized shaving soaps, whether veggie or tallow, are awesome when they have a minimum of 25% oleic acid.

I know high oleic is a lather killer, but there's an optimum range and the lather feels fatty and nourishing.

I really dislike high stearic/coconut based shaving soaps!

 

[Johnez]

@Nav have have you noticed any difference between refined and unrefined Shea and cocoa?

 

[Nav]

@Nav have have you noticed any difference between refined and unrefined Shea and cocoa?

I don't use shea as I don't enjoy the smell (I keep my soap unscented due to my sensitive skin).

I use unrefined, food grade cocoa butter as I love the subtle hint of the cocoa.

I'll order kokum and mango butters once I'm home, in order to make the 80% butter soap.