Thank you for your feedback! I really am starting to appreciate the significance of ingredients as I work my way through my 160 soap scents. It is becoming very obvious to me what my face likes and dislikes. One question for you: castor oil is touted on soap making forums as marvelous for lather in the 5-8% range but none of my shave soaps contain it that I am aware of. Is this because other oils are better at creating creamy lather or what is it? Thank you again for sharing your knowledge. Looks like I have another soap maker to add to my stash!
Shaving Soap with no Stearic Acid - Lather Problems?
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Thank you for your feedback! I really am starting to appreciate the significance of ingredients as I work my way through my 160 soap scents. It is becoming very obvious to me what my face likes and dislikes. One question for you: castor oil is touted on soap making forums as marvelous for lather in the 5-8% range but none of my shave soaps contain it that I am aware of. Is this because other oils are better at creating creamy lather or what is it? Thank you again for sharing your knowledge. Looks like I have another soap maker to add to my stash!
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Thank you for the replys guys. I now am sure that this soap must be thrown away.
It those percentages Castor Oil helps to "loosen up" some of the other soap ingredients as it makes a soap that is more soluble but it really has no place in shaving soap because it shortens the life of the soap making it disappear more quickly. It also make lather with larger bubbles which is totally inappropriate for this purpose. Well selected fatty acids is a better way to go, Stearic being the most important to use. HTH!
Thanks for the explanation, I had actually noticed that a number of my soft soaps use castor oil and that those tend to go faster than others and I now believe that this is the reason.
Now that you mention it, Castor Oil is the third ingredient on at least some of the Mystic Water shave soaps. I wonder if that is partly to blame for the disappearing lather I get when I have used MW shave soap. I normally get an awesome lather that tends to disappear before I'm done with a pass.
Castor Oil appears to be very bubbly but also very Creamy
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Ya, I wouldn't say the Mystic Water lather is bubbly. It's a good lather. I just find it dissipates very fast. Mystic Water has plenty of other great ingredients. I am not a soap making expert, and I certainly do not mean this to say anything negative about the MW soap. A lot of people love it. Maybe they create better lather or shave faster than I do...
Here's the list for their Bay Rum:
Ingredients: Saponified Tallow, Water, Saponified Castor Oil, Glycerin, Saponified Shea Butter, Saponified Avocado Oil, Saponified Palm Oil, Saponified Stearic Acid, Aloe Vera Leaf Juice, Bentonite Clay, Silk, Fragrance.
Here's the list for their Bay Rum:
Ingredients: Saponified Tallow, Water, Saponified Castor Oil, Glycerin, Saponified Shea Butter, Saponified Avocado Oil, Saponified Palm Oil, Saponified Stearic Acid, Aloe Vera Leaf Juice, Bentonite Clay, Silk, Fragrance.
Dissipating lather tends to indicate that you have over hydrated the lather when the soap is otherwise a stable one. I haven't had any issues with MW dissipating but it's the slickness that I can't seem to find.
If the first 30 seconds after finishing fussing with it are superior in their manner to another fuel that looks exactly as it did an hour on from lathering, sign me up, and I don't mind at all re-fussing with it again and again during the shave if that fuel is doing something better, even briefly, than another.
I got into this world because I was a patient tinkerer, and the stability of a fuel for me is its absolute least important capacity among feeling after the shave, sense of hydration during the shave, slickness, cushioning, voluminousness, ease of its creation, and odor.
Far from a chemist but have tried some fuels with sodium cocoate #1 that were wonderful for me; they all do, however, share that elevated degree of difficulty.
Move it to the shower, don't toss it. Lousy shave soaps I find are usually good body soaps.
I agree, they are usually higher in conditioning than a lot of bath and body soaps.
With Sodium Cocoate as it's main ingredient it will be great for big, bubbly lather but has the potential of being very drying and irritating to the skin whether it is on your face, your skin... or any place else on your body! 
Beware!
Beware!With Sodium Cocoate as it's main ingredient it will be great for big, bubbly lather but has the potential of being very drying and irritating to the skin whether it is on your face, your skin... or any place else on your body!
Saponifico Varesino has Sodium Cocoate as it's main ingredient and many people here love it as a veg soap. There is a lot about soaping I don't understand yet, this being one of them.
you can't just look at one ingredient in isolation. Mystic Water, for example, does have a lot of castor oil, but that is balanced out by the other ingredients, such as kokum butter. the complete absence of coconut oil makes it slightly harder to lather, but aids in the almost miraculously smooth post-shave face feel that MW is famous for.
it's the totality of the ingredients that make the lather.
it's the totality of the ingredients that make the lather.
As a professional soapmaker who began his career in 1998, I have a great deal of background in the subject and done a ton of research and know my ingredients and the characteristics they possess. In this instance, positioning in an ingredients list is crucial in determining the characteristics a product will have and I did look at that list before I made my statement. Since this is a "shaving" soap which is governed by the F.D.A. then it's ingredients list must be from largest to smallest quantity down to the 1% level and this ingredients appears to be done in the correct format.
Sodium Cocoate
Sodium SunFlowerSeedate
Sodium Avocadoate
Aqua
Sodium Sweet Almondate
Glycerin
Since "Aqua" or water is fourth in the list then your know that the Sodium Almondate is a fairly small percentage of the formula and the Vitis Vinifera Seed Oil (Grapeseed Oil) being listed below the Glycerin would also indicate that it is a very small percentage anyway and it is not saponified so that leaves the top four oils as your main "soap" ingredients.
I wouldn't think that the top three oils would be in the same percentage as one another and if the fourth oil was say 10% (or less) and the other three oils equaled the other ninety percent of your oils phase (or more) and they were near equal to each other then the Coconut Oil would have to be at least in the 30% range (which is the only way the Coconut Oil could be at this low a number) which is above the typical 20% to sometimes 25% range that Coconut Oil is found in a soap formula. This is the only way that the percentage of Coconut Oil could be even that low and more likely than not it is at a higher percentage that 30% and there is very little in the fatty acid characteristics of the other oils that will compensate for this! It is for this reason I stand behind what I said about this soap. It will not be very good for shaving and I wouldn't bathe with it either! Mystic Water's Shave soap has Tallow as it's main ingredient and Water is the second ingredient so the Castor Oil isn't likely to be in a very large quantity in that formula. Tallow has a good fatty acid profile for this purpose but both Tallow and Castor oil have characteristic odors which are not easy to cover up. In this instance the Ricinoleic acid found in the Castor Oil helps to assist in the lathering as it makes a soap that is more water soluble. There are some soaps like this last one that are formulated well and others that really aren't good for much of anything!
Sodium Cocoate
Sodium SunFlowerSeedate
Sodium Avocadoate
Aqua
Sodium Sweet Almondate
Glycerin
Since "Aqua" or water is fourth in the list then your know that the Sodium Almondate is a fairly small percentage of the formula and the Vitis Vinifera Seed Oil (Grapeseed Oil) being listed below the Glycerin would also indicate that it is a very small percentage anyway and it is not saponified so that leaves the top four oils as your main "soap" ingredients.
I wouldn't think that the top three oils would be in the same percentage as one another and if the fourth oil was say 10% (or less) and the other three oils equaled the other ninety percent of your oils phase (or more) and they were near equal to each other then the Coconut Oil would have to be at least in the 30% range (which is the only way the Coconut Oil could be at this low a number) which is above the typical 20% to sometimes 25% range that Coconut Oil is found in a soap formula. This is the only way that the percentage of Coconut Oil could be even that low and more likely than not it is at a higher percentage that 30% and there is very little in the fatty acid characteristics of the other oils that will compensate for this! It is for this reason I stand behind what I said about this soap. It will not be very good for shaving and I wouldn't bathe with it either! Mystic Water's Shave soap has Tallow as it's main ingredient and Water is the second ingredient so the Castor Oil isn't likely to be in a very large quantity in that formula. Tallow has a good fatty acid profile for this purpose but both Tallow and Castor oil have characteristic odors which are not easy to cover up. In this instance the Ricinoleic acid found in the Castor Oil helps to assist in the lathering as it makes a soap that is more water soluble. There are some soaps like this last one that are formulated well and others that really aren't good for much of anything!
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If you look at the entire ingredient list it's probably balanced off with out oils and glycerin just as the alcohol in AS is balanced by glycerin. I find it to be pretty neutral for post shave feel.
Thank you [MENTION=7070]MilfordNJGuy[/MENTION]!
For ease of calculation let's say the top 3 are 30% each roughly. By adding Sodium SunFlowerSeedate you get 0 Bubbly and 80 Creamy but end up with a ton of Oleic acid.
The third most used ingredient Sodium Avocadoate adds tons more oleic acid and tons of conditioning but that is about it. I don't see ingredients here that should produce a great soap but SV is arguably a fantastic shave soap.
*shrugs shoulders* I have read so much on this but still have years to go before I understand this. All I really know is that my face loves tallow... Stearic and tallow.
For ease of calculation let's say the top 3 are 30% each roughly. By adding Sodium SunFlowerSeedate you get 0 Bubbly and 80 Creamy but end up with a ton of Oleic acid.
The third most used ingredient Sodium Avocadoate adds tons more oleic acid and tons of conditioning but that is about it. I don't see ingredients here that should produce a great soap but SV is arguably a fantastic shave soap.
*shrugs shoulders* I have read so much on this but still have years to go before I understand this. All I really know is that my face loves tallow... Stearic and tallow.
I always appreciate when we get these posts from the professionals, it's one thing I really like about these forums is that we have people who really know the subject matter. Thanks for you time!
SV contains Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate which is a surfactant not a regular soap and that is where you get your lather and foam. Here are the ingredients I found for SV:
Ingredients: Sodium Cocoate, Potassium Stearate, Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate, Rapeseedate Sodium, Sodium Sunflower Seedate, Aqua / Water / Eau, Butyrospermum Parkii Butter, Prunus Amygdalus Dulcis Oil, Glycerin, Parfum / Fragrance, Oryza Sativa Starch, Sucrose Cocoate, Xanthan Gum, Carapa Guianensis (Andiroba) Nut Oil, Stearic Acid, Sodium Chloride, Tocopheryl Acetate, Vitis Vinifera (Grape) Seed Oil, Citric Acid, Alpha Isomethyl Ionone, Citronellol, Coumarin, Limonene
Since the ingredients list is somewhat long there may not be a large percentage of sodium cocoate (the first ingredient) and there are gums and starches and other "modifiers" too which will change the effects of the formulation. That is why this one works pretty well!
Ingredients: Sodium Cocoate, Potassium Stearate, Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate, Rapeseedate Sodium, Sodium Sunflower Seedate, Aqua / Water / Eau, Butyrospermum Parkii Butter, Prunus Amygdalus Dulcis Oil, Glycerin, Parfum / Fragrance, Oryza Sativa Starch, Sucrose Cocoate, Xanthan Gum, Carapa Guianensis (Andiroba) Nut Oil, Stearic Acid, Sodium Chloride, Tocopheryl Acetate, Vitis Vinifera (Grape) Seed Oil, Citric Acid, Alpha Isomethyl Ionone, Citronellol, Coumarin, Limonene
Since the ingredients list is somewhat long there may not be a large percentage of sodium cocoate (the first ingredient) and there are gums and starches and other "modifiers" too which will change the effects of the formulation. That is why this one works pretty well!
I always appreciate when we get these posts from the professionals, it's one thing I really like about these forums is that we have people who really know the subject matter. Thanks for you time!
Thank you David!
I think it is important that the information that is being presented here is correct and I will only respond in situations when I feel confidant that what I am saying it true and correct and will hopefully add to the understanding of those here. It is so important to make sure that what you're buying is a good product and the best product for you!
