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Home made shaving soap

Thank you very much.
I have a lot of lard (pork tallow, how is it called?), may I use it instead of tallow? I've read that it has a shorter expiration.. I could add a preservative maybe? If so, what?

Thanks.
 
I have a lot of lard (pork tallow, how is it called?), may I use it instead of tallow? I've read that it has a shorter expiration.. I could add a preservative maybe? If so, what?

I use 0.1% (i.e. 1 gram for every kilo of soap) of both Tetrasodium EDTA and BHT which work well together. This may freak-out the hippies but these are tiny quantities of relatively benign preservatives (antioxidants actually) which are commonly used even in so called "eco-friendly" soaps of all descriptions. Most commercial shaving soaps use Tetrasodium EDTA and / or Sodium Etidronate (a notable exception being Cella and the occasional rancidity problem associated with that product has been documented on B&B several times). You can buy them from Bulkactives.com who provide great service. The tetrasodium EDTA (water soluble) can be dissolved in the lye water and the BHT (oil soluble) can be dissolved in the warmed oils before the two are combined. The easiest way to measure tiny quantities of chemicals such as these is to convert the figure you need into grains and use ammunition reloading scales (preferably the balance kind rather than the electronic kind).
 
Tetrasodium EDTA and BHT which work well together. This may freak-out the hippies but these are tiny quantities of relatively benign preservatives (antioxidants actually) which are commonly used even in so called "eco-friendly" soaps of all descriptions.
Not that its a big deal, but EDTA is not an antioxidant or preservative really, its a divalent cation chelator, while this may help preserve some things, it's main function in soap is to bind calcium and help it lather better. BHT is, as you said, an antioxidant preservative.
I've used lard to make soaps, I wouldn't worry about the shelf life, those usually refer to the life of the oil before it is soap. if you are making your own soap and are worried about it going bad just keep it in the freezer in a ziplock bag, it'll last years.
 
I second Quintar's suggetion about not worrying about lard once its saponified. As long as your lye ratio is accurate there is little chance of the soap going rancid.
 
Yeah - I know T-EDTA is a chelating agent but it has to be used in amounts substantially higher than 0.1% for the lathering benefits to be realised (preventing ions interfering with the lathering action) and much higher proportions are used in household cleansers. In using minimal amounts in soaps it's side-effect is to increase stability of excess fats by reducing the oxidation which is catalyzed by metal ions. Thus I agree that though it is not strictly speaking an antioxidant, it has a similar effect.

I've had plenty of soaps develop DOS (and no, there is nothing wrong with my lye ratios) in conducting a crude experiment and leaving them sunny window for several weeks. Simple stuff really - one half of a batch had 0.1% T-EDTA, the other half didn't, one half developed DOS, the other didn't. I went as low as 0.075% on one occasion and it still seemed to work.
To which someone will probably say, don't put your soap in a sunny window / keep it in a zip-lock bag / freeze it / vacuum pack it etc - all of which are mighty fine options when we are dealing with shaving soap-geeks [raising my hand] on B&B but which are not the sort of things that friends (or potential purchasers) think of doing when they acquire shaving soap. It all depends whether you want to keep your creations for personal use or if you wish to sell or give them away. In my experience most people for whom I have given or sold soap to (shaving or bath soap) don't expect it to go "off" no matter how they treat it. They expect to be able to pull it out of a drawer 12 months after acquiring it and not find it covered in orange-brown spots.
 
Thank you very much guys, this is very preciuos information for me!

@Vlad I will need testers :) but since I live the other side of the oceans I guess the shipping costs would make disadvantageous the send.

Thanks again. I can't wait to make this soap.
 
Other natural preservatives* I could use are (they are maybe easier to find for me):

. Citric Acid
. Grapefruit Seed Extract
. Rosemary Oil Extract

But in what proportion?

Now I am thinking of using the following ingredients:

Coconut oil200
Stearic acid200
Tallow (or lard)150
Castor oil20

NaOH %35%
KOH %65%
Overfat (?)8%
The calculations give me:

Iodine19
INS201
Hardness69
Bubbles46
Persistence70
Cleaning60
Conditioning38

I would like to change the ingredients (their proportions or add more), to lover the bubbles and the cleaning effect, while increasing the conditioning.

Any hints?


* this word in Italian means "condom"!
 
I would like to change the ingredients (their proportions or add more), to lover the bubbles and the cleaning effect, while increasing the conditioning.

Any hints?

The coconut oil is what is giving it that high cleansing score. Try it Coconut oil third, and tallow first.
 
Other natural preservatives* I could use are (they are maybe easier to find for me):

. Citric Acid
. Grapefruit Seed Extract
. Rosemary Oil Extract

I read a study where they found that grapefruit seed extract had no bactericidal properties, just that something like 90% of all grapefruit seed extract is contaminated with industrial preservatives heheh. I would think citric acid or ascorbic acid would be good antioxidants or for that matter just put in vitamin E...it'll preserve the soap and give you healthy skin...
 
Citric acid is a brilliant antioxidant for fats as is ascorbic acid (i.e. vitamin C, though it is much more expensive so tends not to be used as such on a commercial basis). Citric acid at 0.1% will greatly extend the shelf-life of tallow as long as it is kept in a cool dark place (refrigeration not necessary). However as soon as those fats are saponified, the high alkalinity from the NaOH and / or KOH neutralises the acid and its antioxidant properties essentially disappear. That aside, it is probably better to concentrate on getting the soap formula right first before worrying too much about stopping rancidity.

Here's a great document on the subject of soap preservation:
http://cavemanchemistry.com/DreadedOrangeSpot-Dunn.pdf
 
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Hi there, thanks for posting this charles_r. I'm really looking forward to (eventually) moving to exclusive use of homemade shave soap.

I just tried a small batch of this last night:

66g palm
66g stearic
40g coconut
28g castor

10g NaOH
26.2g KOH
72.7g H2O

1 tsp kaolin
1 tsp peppermint oil

Before last night I've never made soap before, but I've been wanting to get into it for a little while. First I made a similarly sized cold process batch of a NaOH bar soap castille variation, which went fine (to my untrained eye). I had all the stuff out and had ordered the materials for your recipe (palm subbed for tallow though), so I decided to try it out. Everything went ok until I put the hydroxides into the oil. Hydroxide was 41C, oil was 48C. The second I turned on the stick blender it turned into mashed potatoes! I tried mixing it up with a spatula and packing into a PVC pipe. We'll see if it turns out but I'm not too hopeful. Re-reading this thread, it seems you went to hot process to solve this problem. Any advice, other than going to HP?

Thanks again,
-Holly


Hi everyone, this is an OLD thread of mine, but since then I have done two other recipes, that all worked well. However, I now know what works best for ME. Honestly, I have a few commercial and artisan soap and lately I just always seem to grab the ones I made. Also, as it turns out, i'm in the pro clay camp. Clay thrown into regular soap does not make it a shaving soap, but clay thrown into shaving soap makes it a better shaving soap. I like how to skin feels after the shave when there's added clay. I've tried Bentonite and Kaolin. Both are nice. Benonite feels a little nicer, but the soap ends up greyish. Kaolin is better than no clay, and the soap stays white.

I won't be making a commercial venture out of this, so I thought I would share my final recipe for others to try. (i'm an open source software nut too)
For one pound of shaving soap:
Oils
Beef Tallow 165g (33%)
Stearic Acid 165g (33%)
Coconut Oil 100g (20%)
Castor Oil 70g (14%)

Lye
Sodium Hydroxide (NAOH) 25.2g
Potassium Hydroxie (KOH) 65.6g
Distilled/Purified Water 180g
This is a 35% NaOH to 65% KOH ratio in snowdrift farm's calculator.
 
Hi. If you do cold process, idealy you need to keep the oils and lye at the same temperature. Around 42-43C is fine. 48C, while a tad hot probably is OK with Stearic acid too. If you see your lye is cooling down quicker than your oils, what you can do is put a few inches of cold water and ice cubes in the sink and put the oil container in the sink to help it cool down a bit faster. Keep in mind that if your oils get too cold, you can always zap them in the microwave to get the heat back up but you can't do anything with the lye...

Stearic acid with lye traces almost instantly which is why you got mashed potatoes. It's surprising the first time you see this :) Personally I moved to HP because I don't like to have to worry about the temperatures. You can probably find a used crockpot in a yard sale for next to nothing. New ones arent that much either when they are on sale.

The only thing i'm a little worried with your batch is that you mixed with only a spatula. You want to be sure that your lye is completely blended with your oils. You don't any lye pockets in your soap. It would be pretty harsh! I would recommend a stick blender. I bought a cheap 10$ one with a 10$ extended warranty. One of those rare cases where it was worth it.. replaced it twice already. More expensive ones will burn out just as fast lol.

Just out of curiosity, what lye calculator did you use to check your recipe? If you didn't use one, always do. Especially for recipes found online. One typo in the lye quantities and OUCH. I didn't run your recipe through a lye calc to see if it was OK..

After you've unmolded it and cut it, give it at LEAST 3 weeks to cure. It's usually safe (but a little harsh) after two weeks, but you'll find the soap is better after 4 to 6 weeks.

Other than that, i'm sure it will turn out just fine. And Peppermint should be really nice. The first soap I made was eucalyptus and mint. I loved it!

Have fun and if you have any questions let me know!


Hi there, thanks for posting this charles_r. I'm really looking forward to (eventually) moving to exclusive use of homemade shave soap.

I just tried a small batch of this last night:

66g palm
66g stearic
40g coconut
28g castor

10g NaOH
26.2g KOH
72.7g H2O

1 tsp kaolin
1 tsp peppermint oil

Before last night I've never made soap before, but I've been wanting to get into it for a little while. First I made a similarly sized cold process batch of a NaOH bar soap castille variation, which went fine (to my untrained eye). I had all the stuff out and had ordered the materials for your recipe (palm subbed for tallow though), so I decided to try it out. Everything went ok until I put the hydroxides into the oil. Hydroxide was 41C, oil was 48C. The second I turned on the stick blender it turned into mashed potatoes! I tried mixing it up with a spatula and packing into a PVC pipe. We'll see if it turns out but I'm not too hopeful. Re-reading this thread, it seems you went to hot process to solve this problem. Any advice, other than going to HP?

Thanks again,
-Holly
 
Maybe your SWMBO can teach mine!

But really good job! Nice to see all this work come out to be so successful.

Psst...if you ever sell some to B&B members let me know :batman:
 
Maybe your SWMBO can teach mine!

But really good job! Nice to see all this work come out to be so successful.

Psst...if you ever sell some to B&B members let me know :batman:

We've toyed around with the idea of giving out classes. But no idea how this would work online. For your other question.. well.. just look at my tagline :)
 
We've toyed around with the idea of giving out classes. But no idea how this would work online. For your other question.. well.. just look at my tagline :)

Yeah I live in LA with very little extra room making something like soap making quite dangerous, so I don't think I'll be doing any, but the classes do sound interesting :)
 
We've toyed around with the idea of giving out classes. But no idea how this would work online. For your other question.. well.. just look at my tagline :)

Oh nice, good to see you used that skill and are sharing it around :) I have to recoup from some AD but I definitely want to save this. Great soap and no name-brand cost :)
 
Oh nice, good to see you used that skill and are sharing it around :) I have to recoup from some AD but I definitely want to save this. Great soap and no name-brand cost :)

I'm pretty happy that this thread is still active. My selling formula is not the one originally on this thread, but it evolved from it. I'd be happy to see something nice come out of the info that's posted here.
 
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