What do you think of this shave recipe?

[Obsidian]

Found this on pinterest. It looks promising, what do you all think? I would probably leave out the calendula.

https://thenerdyfarmwife.com/calendula-shave-soap-recipe-dual-lye/

• 16 oz (454 g) cooled calendula tea
• 1.2 oz (34 g) sodium hydroxide
• 1.8 oz (51 g) potassium hydroxide (90% purity)
• 10.6 oz (300 g) kokum butter (60%)
• 3.5 oz (100 g) calendula infused coconut oil (20%)
• 2.6 oz (75 g) castor oil (15%)
• 0.88 oz (25 g) shea butter (5%)
• 0.5 oz (14 g) vegetable glycerin

 

[psfred]

I'm not too impressed -- not enough stearic acid, too much oleic, and I'm not all that frond of castor oil in shave soap (other people like it though).

Replace half the Kokum butter and half the coconut oil with soy wax, and you will have a much nicer shaving soap.

Or make a small amount and see if you like it. I'm guessing your recipe will not give you spectacular lather.

The calendula should make for nice soap, I'm quite fond of Haslinger's Ringenblumen, which contains calendula extract.

 

[Pjclark1]

Serious shavers will only use soap made with 100% KOH.

 

[Obsidian]

Thats not true. Plenty of serious shavers like a crop style soap and that often is achieved with a touch of NaOH.

I was mainly interested to see if this recipe might have enough stearic without use straight stearic acid as I find it leaves a waxy residue on my skin. My shave soap is mostly tallow/stearic and I really like how it performs, its just the skin feel that is lacking.

 

[redhead1226]

Serious shavers will only use soap made with 100% KOH.

I do not believe this is true. I have looked at so many of the popular shaving soap products on the market and most of them according to their ingredient list are made with dual lye. Im not saying all but most. I also assume that they are purchased by "serious shavers". Now with that being said, I personally do not use them or pretend to be any type of expert. But while I was doing my own research to formulate my recipe - I noticed they also use dual lye alot of the time.