Homemade Shaving Soap Discussion Club

[SliceOfLife]

I'm in the process of developing a shaving soap myself and can add that stearic acid content is pretty important. One of my earlier attempts had a stearic content of 21% and it wasn't a good soap. It was fairly slick but any lather dissipated fairly quickly. A later try with much the same ingredients but bumped up the stearic content to about 42% came out much better. I've heard suggestions of up to 60% stearic acid is better. Of course you can't get that high %age without adding straight stearic acid to the mix.

You can get very close. I made a cocoa butter shaving soap (80ish% Cocoa butter) that was the only extremely high performance shave soap I've been able to make without isolated Stearic. It works because Palmitic is almost as good as stearic, and cocoa butter has about the highest % makeup of Stearic+palmitic of any naturally occuring fat. (61%). Castor (which can fill in for stearic in small amounts) brought it up to where a really high quality shave soap needs to be. And I believe I finished it with tallow, though almost anything other than coconut, castor or palm kernel (or similar high laurate/myristate oils) could have been used in tallows place.


Bret, are mints used at a lower percentage because they would be irritating in higher concentrations or simply because of their strength?

 

[alaskazimm]

Interesting. I wouldn't have though to go that high with coco butter. I've read a high % coco butter in a bath bar can cause dragging and I would have though it would be similar in a shaving soap. I may have to try that.

The mints and spices are pretty strong (don't want to overpower everything else) and can be irritating, hence the lower amount. Plus some, like clove, can accelerate trace in CP soap.

 

[driftwood]

When I get a minute to sit down with my recipe book ill post some recipes.

 

[Fordfather]

How about a list of suppliers for the raw materials? Been wanting to try my hand at a small batch of tallow!

 

[SliceOfLife]

Columbus foods is the best prices on fats that I've found.
WfMed and Monterey Bay spice co are the best prices on EO's I've seen, and MSC has clays and some other additives as well (it also has spices, tea's, jars, related items)
I bought about $200 in lye like five years ago, so I can't even remember where it came from. It's on the boxes downstairs, so I'll be able to tell you the next time I remember to check, but as I recall the prices on that don't vary too much, certainly not like on fats.

 

[driftwood]

The two Canadian supplier that I use are:

Sapphire Blue (located in Tillsoburg)
New Directions Aromatics

For all you Canadians wanting to get into the hobby.

 

[JWK1]

I think this is a fantastic thread and would like to thank AndroiDad75 for starting it and all the experienced soap making people who are contributing. I have been reading a lot about soap making on the net and have ordered a bunch of books from the library. My goal is to make all the soaps for my household, including my own non-scented shaving soap.

I'm trying to come up with the most cost effective ingredients while still keeping the qualities we desire in a shaving soap. I'm also trying to have as many of these ingredients as possible be used in the bath and shampoo soaps. Wow, there is really a lot to this stuff. So far I'm thinking the most fool proof shaving soap is going to be tallow, stearic acid, coconut oil saponified with a 60/40% KOH/NaOH. From what I've read (because of the high stearic acid content) it will probably have to be hot processed. I'm hoping I can get around this. I'm trying to keep things simple, but then again I do have a crock pot in the basement...

edited for chemistry

 

[john parker]

Yes! Thank you AndroiDad75! Wonderful thread idea!

 

[AndroiDad75]

When I get a minute to sit down with my recipe book ill post some recipes.

driftwood, that would be great!!! Thanks

Columbus foods is the best prices on fats that I've found.
WfMed and Montgomery spice co are the best prices on EO's I've seen, and MSC has clays and some other additives as well (it also has spices, tea's, jars, related items)

SliceOfLife, thanks for the links, I have added them.

I couldn't figure out the web address for a Montgomery Spice Co. Do you have a link?

The two Canadian supplier that I use are:
Sapphire Blue (located in Tillsoburg)
New Directions Aromatics

Thanks for the links, I have added them to the first post.


Michelle, thanks again for the info, I think i have updated the first post to reflect what you stated.

 

[AndroiDad75]

I think this is a fantastic thread and would like to thank AndroiDad75 for starting it and all the experienced soap making people who are contributing.

Yes! Thank you AndroiDad75! Wonderful thread idea!

Thanks guys!!!

I thought it would be a neat thread to try and collate a lot of the info about DIY shaving soap. I have seen some info thrown around here and there, but it was hard for me to find it all.

Also, I figure there are a bunch of people in this hobby who are tinkers like me, and who would like to try this, at least once. I think it would be pretty cool, and rewarding to make my own shaving soap at least once. It may be something I only ever do once, because there are so many great soaps out there, that I don't really want to sacrifice my shaves. Although, I would like to try it once.


And I couldn't agree more with JWK1. Thank you to the great soap makers who have already jumped in this thread and helped out. I really appreciate your participation, and I think I can speak for everyone, when I say please stick around.

 

[alaskazimm]

Here are two suppliers that I use regularly:
Soap Making Resource
Wholesale Supplies Plus
BrambleBerry

edit - they carry base oils, additives (clay, colorants, etc), molds, and essential oils. WSP and BB carry fragrance oils as well, also they have some basic tools.

further edit - BrambleBerry has some great tutorials on YouTube under Soap Queen TV to help you get started.

@JWK1 - yes you will have to HP shaving soap due to the high stearic acid content. Once the lye solution hits the melted stearic acid it immediately traces to a very thick batter. The heat makes it able to be worked whereas CP would just make what's known as "Soap on a Stick". A crockpot would do nicely. Just don't let SWMBO find out

 

[SliceOfLife]

A couple picks of a single puck I poured myself today. 100g of fats batch. Thats a pint stainless steel saucepan. Works well for tiny batches. You don't want to use aluminum unless it's completely surfaced with a nonreactive material, as Aluminum reacts with hydroxides, increasing your superfat, boiling out gaseous hydrogen (highly flammable), and leaving some residual material in the soap (Potassium Aluminate or Sodium Aluminate), and eating away at the pan. This is the same reaction that happens with hydroxide drain cleaners.

With a small batch and a lot of headspace, I don't bother temping the fats, they're usually 200-225+, this causes an instant trace while simultaneously evaporating off a great deal of the water from the lye solution. Never do this in a big batch or anywhere that a boil over would be problematic (small batch in the sink, or ideally outside away from everything), as the water evaporation will instantly cause your soap to "boil" as the boiling water forms large air pockets in the molten (and tracing) soap, somewhat like a science fair volcano. You want to be under 150F (the exact value varies depending on the recipe, but 150 has always been low enough for me). At this temp, trace will depend more on your fat makeups, A ton of castor and you'll still get an almost instant trace. More tallow/palm and it'll take a bit longer.


Pictures are the fats immediately before adding the lye solution and ~5 seconds after (a second or two to mix it and then time to grab the camera). This is a mix of lyes (na/k) and Stearic acid, palm and coconut oils. A very basic shaving soap. Took about 15 minutes to make, most of which was just melting the fats.

tallow, stearic acid, coconut oil saponified with a 60/40% KOH/NaOH

Corrected your potassium Hydoxide typo there, but yes, that's a very simple and easy to do soap as well. Almost identical to what I've done here, but with tallow in place of palm. You'll want to tune around with the coconut and stearic levels as well as the K/NA ratio to get it where you like it in future batches, but those 5 elements are going to give you the best starting point. You don't really HAVE to hot process it, though with high enough levels of stearic, you're almost forced to do a partial hot process, because it begins to harden in the mid one hundreds, and at that temperature, saponification rates are significantly higher than if you were able to mix closer to a hundred degrees. The crock pot isn't really necessary, you can still TREAT IT like a CP, it will just trace and be ready to use slightly faster than if you had mixed cooler. I haven't had a case where the heat of the reaction wasn't sufficient to keep the soap workable plenty long to mold it after trace.

 

[SliceOfLife]

Since it was just the one puck, it set fast (usually takes 1-2 days to set up nice and firm if you're filling a full mold, more with "tacky" soaps like castor oil). Just over 2 hrs start to finish (including 90minutes watching tv) and you've got shaving soap. I won't typically use it to shave with for a few days just to let the texture set up, and the performance does shift slightly for the first week or two, but once the PH is reasonable you could use it if you wanted to. It becomes a little less "fluffy" during brush loading as it sets (I assume because the soap both dries and hardens further).


Also, my mistake, it's "Monterey Bay Spice co". Their catalog is really neat to thumb through. They sent me one with my order.

 

[AndroiDad75]

SliceOfLife,

Thanks for the preview of how quickly a puck can be made. It was super interesting.

So is it orange colored because of the EO's, clay, or tallow?

 

[SliceOfLife]

Lighting and dark beeswax which I used as a carrier for my EO's in this puck. It would be white in natural light without the wax, due to the fats I used all creating white soap. It's mostly lighting. That's a green towel it's pictured on. The room is just very dark.

Coconut oil, stearic acid, tallow all create a white soap. There might be a subtle color to palm, I'm not sure as I rarely use enough of it in a recipe it would be particularly noticeable, since if there is a color, it's very faint.


Some fats do produce a colored product. Olive oil for instance.

 

[Big Jim]

Thank you for starting this thread. I've been thinking of trying some melt & pour soap and have been saving the clamshells from soap I have bought (VDH & Col Conk) to pour into to make shaving pucks. The biggest thing holding me back at the moment is finding essential oils for the scent. I'll be watching this thread both to learn more about soap making and especially to learn of sources for EO.

 

[AndroiDad75]

SliceOfLife, thanks for the explanation, that was very helpful.

Big Jim, I agree, I hope this thread hopes everyone who wants to give it a try.

That being said, I think Big Jim brings up a good point. I'd love to know what people are putting their soap into as molds. I am wondering if something like a silicone muffin mold, or regular metal muffing tins, would work to make pucks? Or are people putting it right into a Anchor Hocking jar?

Hopefully, if I make a batch and it makes quite a few pucks, I would be able to have them molded and then wrapped up, in parchment or something, and put away until needed, and then put into an anchor hocking. If I have to put it right into the anchor hocking I would, but that could take a lot of space, etc...

 

[driftwood]

I use wooden molds I made myself for my bath soap. I've also used those molds for my latest shave soap and just sliced the shave soap into bars. The shave soap used 100% KOH so it's soft enough to squish into my container of choice. I've also got some plastic soap molds (round), but they suck for soap, much better for massage/after shower bars. I've used small cardboard boxes as well, really the options are endless.

 

[SliceOfLife]

SliceOfLife, thanks for the explanation, that was very helpful.

Big Jim, I agree, I hope this thread hopes everyone who wants to give it a try.

That being said, I think Big Jim brings up a good point. I'd love to know what people are putting their soap into as molds. I am wondering if something like a silicone muffin mold, or regular metal muffing tins, would work to make pucks? Or are people putting it right into a Anchor Hocking jar?

Hopefully, if I make a batch and it makes quite a few pucks, I would be able to have them molded and then wrapped up, in parchment or something, and put away until needed, and then put into an anchor hocking. If I have to put it right into the anchor hocking I would, but that could take a lot of space, etc...

Silicon muffin tins work, but if you want a 3" puck, the best option is 3" ID pvc.

 

[InNae]

Thanks Android for stsrting this thread. I'm starting to make some soaps and eventuslly a shave sosp is on the list. Going to monitor this thread for sure. I'm using a PVC pipe that I cut in half. Haven't tried it yet but I think it will work. I'm really curious about some of the scents people are using.

InNae