newbie: low-cost hydrolast hack?

[jsarets]

Hello folks! New to wet shaving, first post...

I've been gifted a Merkur 34C HD and wish to try my hand at wet shaving. I don't yet have a shaving brush or any shaving soaps/creams. I have more ingenuity than money.

I've been doing a fair bit of research and think I understand the concept of a good lather for wet shaving. We're basically using saponified fatty acids as an emulsifier and glycerin as a humectant in order to suspend a maximum amount of water in a stable hydrophilic lather.

The HydroLast line seems to best embody the functional principles of wet shaving lather as I understand them. But with all due respect to the disciples of "Method Shaving", this Charles Roberts guy is a lunatic, inventing a whole made-up vocabulary of techno-babble to complicate simple ideas while hypocritically sneering at the marketing tactics used by Gillette to sell cartridge razors and canned foam. I wouldn't give this guy a dime out of my pocket. Sorry, but he just gives me the urge to hack his "system".

Okay, so the "Shave Cube" is a simple palm oil or olive oil hard soap. Not sure about glycerin content. The "Shave Paste" is a semi-soft glycerin soap. The "Cutting Balm" is mostly jojoba oil. The "Activator" is mostly palm oil. That's why I've been able to glean from Google-Fu.

I'd like to start my hack with a product I already have on hand and enjoy using. Dr. Bronner's soap is a simple product made by saponifying coconut and palm oils, retaining the liberated glycerin, and superfatting with olive, hemp, and jojoba oils. It has all the main ingredients present in the HydroLast "wet mix", plus the first ingredient is coconut oil, rich in saturated short-chain fatty acids which are well-known for excellent lathering performance.

The key variables are the proper ratios of glycerin and oil per unit soap. Dr. Bronner's might be short on glycerin and oil compared to a HydroLast mix. But glycerin and palm oil are cheap, and I think they should be reasonably miscible with the liquid soap.

Has anyone tried using Dr. Bronner's soap for building a wet shaving lather? Does it work? Were any additives helpful?

The shave cloth is also an interesting concept, because it's clearly a whole lot more economical to produce than a badger hair brush. It immediately invites comparison to those polyethylene mesh bath poufs, which are also pretty darn good at building lather. Maybe the cell size is too big and will over-aerate the lather? I can get nylon mesh filter cloth from McMaster-Carr...

Here's my proposition: if it's possible to build a great shave lather from a minimal number of simple all-natural ingredients and a cheap piece of fabric, as the proponents of "Method Shaving" very credibly suggest, then why do I have to buy a proprietary system? This concept should be easy to bring into the public domain for the benefit of all shavers.

[TheVez2]

Interesting first post. Welcome to B&B!

[Foyle]

Dr. Bronners soap makes an awful wet shaving lather. I tried it and I'll take my Tabac any day of the week over it. There's a lot more to a good shave soap than the oils used as the soap base.

Charle's Roberts personality not withstanding his Hydro Last products are reputed to be excellent even by people who don't Method Shave per se. Even his most vocal critics have admitted that his products perform admirably. You won't be able to hack his products by substituting Bronner's liquid soap. It seems to me that Robert's has put a genuine effort into formulating truly functional products that are different than the mainstream of shaving soaps. Many shavers have been helped by his Hydrolast products.

As to criticisms of Charles Roberts, it's better to stay away from the subject all together. Threads on Method Shaving always turn into very ungentlemanly diatribes. I for one enjoy B&B a lot more when we are building one another up in the enjoyment of our hobby rather than tearing others down.

While it's always appropriate to rate the performance of a product it's never wise or gentlemanly in my opinion to use ad-hominem.

With that, welcome to B&B.

[djh]

A $10 Omega brush and a few bucks for a shave stick will get you started.....

[Go West Young Man]

Considering you'll be running a razor blade across your face, I'd suggest learning how to shave using tried and true products before you start going off tilting at windmills. Your face will thank you!

[jsarets]

Dr. Bronners soap makes an awful wet shaving lather. I tried it and I'll take my Tabac any day of the week over it. There's a lot more to a good shave soap than the oils used as the soap base.

Alright, I do notice that most commercial shaving soaps are based on long-chain saturates (e.g. stearic acid), so the hypothesis about coconut oil may be faulty. But as you suggest, the effectiveness of a shave soap probably has more to do with the non-soap ingredients. I suspect that part of the reason why Dr. Bronner's doesn't perform well as a shave soap on its own is because the glycerin content may be too low. It's also possible that the pH is too low. I notice that some commercial shaving soaps which list their ingredients in saponified form (e.g. sodium stearate, potassium tallowate, etc.) also list sodium hydroxide and/or potassium hydroxide as ingredients. So it may be the case that a good shaving soap benefits from a fairly alkaline pH.

In any case, shaving soaps work for a reason, and we can figure it out. It's not magic. What appeals to me the most about wet shaving culture is the rejection of the hyperbolic marketing tactics and dubious technical claims of the mass market shaving products in preference for simple tools and empowered users. So it bothers me that most shaving soaps/creams on the market are so eager to proclaim boutique status, secret recipes, and designer fragrances. That's not my style. I like things to be simple and understandable.

That's why I like Dr. Bronner's soap. It's a simple and understandable soap of very high quality that works better than fancy soaps. Maybe it's not suitable as a shaving soap or a base thereof. So then what would be the shaving soap equivalent: an all-natural, no-frills, high-quality shaving soap?

[TheVez2]

So then what would be the shaving soap equivalent: an all-natural, no-frills, high-quality shaving soap?

Martin de Candre is the soap that comes to mind for me. Yes it is expensive, but it is super high quality and super basic in design.

Ingredients: Stearic acid, Water, Coconut oil, Potassium hydroxide, Glycerin, Fragrance.

[StripeyType]

These are excellently-reasoned hypotheses. We must test them of course, but that's the exciting bit. I appreciate your enthusiasm for deconstruction, here.

I'm heading back to CONUS soon, which will simplify any attempt I might make at reproducing your experiments, so please make sure you share your methods and results!

[mftoms59]

Welcome Newb, I say if you have the ingredients and are that intrigued, make a lather but don't use a DE to shave with it. If it looks good enough for you to use, use the Razor you're most comfortable using, you'll satisfy your curiosity one way or the other and be done with it.(or not)

[StripeyType]

And actually, now you have me looking at food grade bulk stearic acid, which is more than a little ridiculous of me.

[Foyle]

Alright, I do notice that most commercial shaving soaps are based on long-chain saturates (e.g. stearic acid), so the hypothesis about coconut oil may be faulty. But as you suggest, the effectiveness of a shave soap probably has more to do with the non-soap ingredients.

No, I didn't say that at all. You have misunderstood my point entirely.

[global_dev]

i have a hydrolast starter kit, relatively inexpensive, and the resultant "mix" is very different from a traditional lather.. good luck!

[jsarets]

Has anyone tried this inexpensive "Classic Brand" shaving soap?:

http://www.classicshaving.com/catalo...960/198657.htm

The first ingredient is glycerin, followed by sodium salts of lauric and stearic acids, and propylene glycol (another humectant). So that could be a performance baseline for a high-glycerin soap. If this product works well, then cutting Dr. Bronner's with increasing amounts of glycerin might be an effective route to pursue. Again, I'm not sure if the "Shave Cube" is a high-glycerin or high-fat soap. In the youtube videos, it is suggested that soaking the cube on its own in a sink of hot water infuses the sink water with "emollients". Both glycerin and lipids are considered emollients, so the cube must be especially rich in one or both. It can't be a lean soap.

I suppose another relevant question would be about the performance of the cube alone, without the paste, balm, or activator. The paste is almost certainly rich in glycerin and oil, and both the balm and activator are primarily oil. So how important are these products to building an effective "wet mix"? I've read some comments suggesting that the cube is pretty "slick" itself. "Slick" seems to be the operative term when it comes to describing how hydrolast is notably different from traditional products. So we have to account for the "slick" in terms of ingredients.

[michiganlover]

Has anyone tried this inexpensive "Classic Brand" shaving soap?:

http://www.classicshaving.com/catalo...960/198657.htm

I recently worked though 1.5 pucks of it. Most people consider it to be totally awful, but I found it to be a mediocre shaving soap. It provides for an ok lather, that will get the job done, but far better products are available.

I would suggest you learn to lather with a good tallow based soap (such as Tabac, Arko Shaving Stick, or Queen Charlotte Soaps) so you have a baseline for what good lather should be, before you undertake these expensive experiments that you are considering.

[BeeSeeDub]

Pursuing the creation of your own shaving soap (or recreating someone else’s) and “saving money” seem like mutually exclusive endeavors.

There are plenty of inexpensive soaps, many already mentioned, that are superb performers. On a per-shave basis the cost is pennies. That same math may even hold true for the Hydrolast stuff.

Aftershave on the other hand…

[petr]

You're on the right track young jedi. Sounds like your chemistry knowledge is coming in handy. Great, I like the way your mind works. Get to work. The problem is this shaving gig is based on testing against your skin. It just is. Theory is one thing, while working is another. Don't let anyone discourage you.

Let us know what you find out.

[franz]

I recommend an exhaustive survey of the following shaving soaps, in no particular order:

D.R. Harris
Art of Shaving
Mitchell's Wool Fat
Speick
Valobra
Institut Karite
Martin de Candre
Cella
QCS
Irisch Moos
Palmolive stick
Tabac

The empirical data you gather will put you in a very strong position to judge the results of your subsequent experiments.

[bjh618]

Arko - $1.50 per stick.
Omega Boar - $9

[michiganlover]

Arko - $1.50 per stick.
Omega Boar - $9

Fully agree, $10.50 for excellent products that just flat out work as intended, or spend $100's of dollars (and it will be given the many failed attempts it usually takes to perfect a shaving soap) to work the kinks out of your own recipe.

[Blix]

Less science, more shaving.

Good grief, you haven't even started shaving yet lol! You are way into overthinking already, save that for later.