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Home made shaving soap

What do you mean by stearic acid spots? If you're talking about the little lumps of harder than the rest of the bar soap, I don't think those are actually stearic acid. I've NEVER encountered them in a shaving soap (and I've done PURE stearic acid batches before), but I got them one time in a batch of body soap I tried doing with almost zero stearic content (castor, olive, palm, coconut and a tiny bit of cocoa butter). I really don't know what they are myself. I assumed they were bits of the cocoa butter I superfatted with (after trace) that for some reason formed bubbles when it solidified, but that was just a guess.
 
Generally, below ~2x your lye (by weight (so if its 5oz NaOh + 5oz KOH, 20oz H2O)) it becomes tedious to get the lye to fully dissolve. Above that you're just adjusting the initial water content of the soap.
 
Thanks SliceOfLife,

Thanks, I figured out what happened and why I was so confused. When I use Soapcalc the lye amounts are different for both NaoH and KOH which is fine because I just figure out 50% of each one. The water is the same for both too. I was using another lye calculator where the lye was 5.58 oz and the water was 13.02. Then for the KOH side lye was 8.33 oz and water was 24.99 oz so I had no idea if I wanted the NaOH waster or the KOH. With Soapcalc it makes no difference as the water doesn't change.
 
I started working in a homemade shaving soap recently and have been tinkering with the recipe. I'm thinking of just pulling the coconut oil out completely and using more castor oil, has anybody else had any luck with a no coconut shave soap?
 
I started working in a homemade shaving soap recently and have been tinkering with the recipe. I'm thinking of just pulling the coconut oil out completely and using more castor oil, has anybody else had any luck with a no coconut shave soap?

Sort of. My very first batch of shave soap was made from stearic acid (50% by mass), beef tallow (40% by mass), and coconut oil (10% by mass). Each fat was made into a single-fat soap (in other words I made 3 different batches of soap ... stearic soap, tallow soap, and coconut soap) and the final soap was made by mechanically "milling" the soap in a kitch food processor. Each was made with 35% water and 5% SF.

I found that soap to be good, although when I sent samples to other wet shavers the results were mixed. Generally speaking they all liked it but a few of them (soapers) remarked that the lather was "very tight" and could stand "using more coconut oil."

Lately I use 50-25-25 stearic-lard (or tallow)-coconut proportions and do "double saponification" in an effort to have only coconut oil as the remaining SF (Start with lard/tallow and add all of the water and lye. Then add stearic. Then add coconut.). The lather is excellent, and the post-shave feel is equally excellent.

So I think you'll probably be fine, and if you like it then that's great. Seems like a YMMV type of thing.

Cheers-
Dave
 
I started working in a homemade shaving soap recently and have been tinkering with the recipe. I'm thinking of just pulling the coconut oil out completely and using more castor oil, has anybody else had any luck with a no coconut shave soap?

Michelle at Mystic Waters Soaps has done a pretty dang good job of making a coconut oil-free shaving soap.

You could look at her ingredients list for some ideas.
 
Sort of. My very first batch of shave soap was made from stearic acid (50% by mass), beef tallow (40% by mass), and coconut oil (10% by mass). Each fat was made into a single-fat soap (in other words I made 3 different batches of soap ... stearic soap, tallow soap, and coconut soap) and the final soap was made by mechanically "milling" the soap in a kitch food processor. Each was made with 35% water and 5% SF.

I found that soap to be good, although when I sent samples to other wet shavers the results were mixed. Generally speaking they all liked it but a few of them (soapers) remarked that the lather was "very tight" and could stand "using more coconut oil."

Lately I use 50-25-25 stearic-lard (or tallow)-coconut proportions and do "double saponification" in an effort to have only coconut oil as the remaining SF (Start with lard/tallow and add all of the water and lye. Then add stearic. Then add coconut.). The lather is excellent, and the post-shave feel is equally excellent.

So I think you'll probably be fine, and if you like it then that's great. Seems like a YMMV type of thing.

Cheers-
Dave
Dave, are you using only KOH and do you add any glycerin?
 
Michelle at Mystic Waters Soaps has done a pretty dang good job of making a coconut oil-free shaving soap.

You could look at her ingredients list for some ideas.

The batch I am making this weekend is 40% Stearic Acid, 25% Castor Oil, 10% Shea Butter, 10% Mango Butter, 5% Avocado Oil, 5%Meadowfoam Oil, 5% Evening Primrose Oil. Planning on using KOH and adding Glycerin after trace. Any thoughts on this, any changes that absolutely need to be made?
 
I took charles-r's:

33% Stearic
33% Tallow
20% Coconut
14% Castor

And modified slightly, because I had some shea butter on hand I wanted to use, into this:

33% Stearic
33% Tallow
19% Coconut
10% Castor
5% Shea

I waited about five minutes into stick blending before I added the melted shea butter thinking it would be my superfat. Cooked for an hour and a half, no zap, so I added one tablespoon of clay and two tablespoons of glycerin, mixed well and put into tubs. I also used about 20g more water than his recipe. After five hours of sitting out, the tubs feel sticky? My 100% KOH recipes very felt sticky?

Is this sticky feel from: Too much water? Shea Butter? Glycerin at the end? NaOH? Time?
 
cgsample, when you changed the ingredients, did you run everything through a lye calculator?

Yes, but. In Soapcalc, I don't know if I should check the 90% KOH or not. I don't know if my Essential Depot KOH is 90%? I didn't check it which had me use less KOH, thinking that was safer? So possibly I over superfatted?
 
Holy dead thread resurrection batman! :)

*A* place to start can be found in my sig. Generally speaking I prefer soaps with NO dirt, 100% KOH, and high in Stearic Acid.

Even since the last time this thread was resurrected, people understand more about soaps than before.
 
Holy dead thread resurrection batman! :)

*A* place to start can be found in my sig. Generally speaking I prefer soaps with NO dirt, 100% KOH, and high in Stearic Acid.

Even since the last time this thread was resurrected, people understand more about soaps than before.

Your recipe was my very first attempt. I liked it and will do it again! Thank you. Just playing with other recipes now. Of course, now I have more soap than I'll ever use for the rest of my life.
 
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