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Shaving Soaps vs High Quality Face or Body Soaps?

I've recently returned to traditional wet shaving with a DE. This has resulted in a good deal of rummaging though my wife's (more sizable than I had even realized :blink:) stash of beauty and skin products. She's got Lanolin, glycerine, more moisturizers than I can count. You get the picture.

Among the stash are a good variety of nice soaps. Some fancy (and very pleasant smelling) French Triple Milled soaps, Glycerine Soaps, and a large array of other soap bars.

Are these suitable for shaving? Is there something that makes a shaving soap different that one aimed at body or hair use.

Sorry for a novice question, but I searched and didn't find an answer.

Bill
 
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You can try lathering them if you like, but they probably won't lather well enough to shave with. Shaving soaps have different formulations, to promote protective and long-lasting lather as well as slickness.
 
There are a handful of threads littered about over the years that talk about different body soaps fella's are trying for shaving. (The scariest being the thread about using the Laundry detergent bar :eek:)

The end result is that they just don't perfome as well as some of the inexpensive soaps made for shaving that we talk about here.
 
They're not going to work.

+1

The best one you find is still likely to under perform the $1.67 puck of Van Der Hagen Deluxe. In other words trying to make bath soaps work for shaving is a waste of time, and money.

In my early days, I tried with a few of the high end bath soaps sold in the natural foods isle. They were all horridly disappointing.
 
You can try lathering them if you like, but they probably won't lather well enough to shave with. Shaving soaps have different formulations, to promote protective and long-lasting lather as well as slickness.

There are a handful of threads littered about over the years that talk about different body soaps fella's are trying for shaving. (The scariest being the thread about using the Laundry detergent bar :eek:)

The end result is that they just don't perfome as well as some of the inexpensive soaps made for shaving that we talk about here.

My dear dad lathered up with Ivory for decades. Not that that ever struck me as a good idea. I am kind of curious about what makes a soap a shaving soap? Say a glycerine soap. How does the "formulation" change for something like this?

I can respect that they are not not the same, but can anyone explain why?

Bill
 
I make that mistake one time ( use a bathsoap like shave soap) when I start to shave with a straight 9 years ago and dont work . Use a shaving soap out there are a lot of variety very well made .
 
There's only one way to know for sure :lol:

But, I wouldn't try. The chemistry is different. Contrary to ordinary soap, shaving soap is really intended for shaving. Most of these soaps are less irritating and milder compared to regular bathing soaps. That’s why it’s perfect for shaving because these are specially formulated to protect the skin against traumas of shaving. Moreover, shave soaps serve to soften the facial hair for the blade to easily cut them whereas bath/body soaps' primary intent is to clean.
 
There's only one way to know for sure :lol:

But, I wouldn't try. The chemistry is different. Contrary to ordinary soap, shaving soap is really intended for shaving. Most of these soaps are less irritating and milder compared to regular bathing soaps. That’s why it’s perfect for shaving because these are specially formulated to protect the skin against traumas of shaving. Moreover, shave soaps serve to soften the facial hair for the blade to easily cut them whereas bath/body soaps' primary intent is to clean.

A wikipedia entry suggests that shaving soaps are created using both sodium hydroxide (lye) and potassium hydroxide (caustic potash) where body soaps use only the former. I have no idea about the veracity of this entry.

I wonder (hope) one of the soap makers on this forum might jump in with their expert knowledge. I'm curious what would turn the same basic ingredients from "cleaning" products to hair-softening/lubricating products.

Maybe it's the caustic potash, maybe something else???

Bill
 
I can respect that they are not not the same, but can anyone explain why?

Bill

There are soapers on the board who could explain this better, but as I understand it, soap is a combination of various oils. Which oils you choose, and their respective ratios determine the qualities of a soap. So even two soaps with identical ingredients could lather entirely differently if the ratio of the various oils was different.

The oils, and the ratio of those oils for shaving soap are chosen to meet a specific goal: produce a rich, creamy, stable, long lasting lather, that has small bubbles (thus making it dense, and not airy).

In comparison, the primary purpose of bath soap seems to be to act as a moisturizer, and a desirable lather is foamy, and quite airy.

For purpose of comparison, bath soaps often contain olive oil, while most shaving soap doesn't. A large portion of Olive Oil seems to lead to a unstable lather, thus a soap that is useless for shaving.
 
There are soapers on the board who could explain this better, but as I understand it, soap is a combination of various oils. Which oils you choose, and their respective ratios determine the qualities of a soap. So even two soaps with identical ingredients could lather entirely differently if the ratio of the various oils was different.

The oils, and the ratio of those oils for shaving soap are chosen to meet a specific goal: produce a rich, creamy, stable, long lasting lather, that has small bubbles (thus making it dense, and not airy).

In comparison, the primary purpose of bath soap seems to be to act as a moisturizer, and a desirable lather is foamy, and quite airy.

For purpose of comparison, bath soaps often contain olive oil, while most shaving soap doesn't. A large portion of Olive Oil seems to lead to a unstable lather, thus a soap that is useless for shaving.

This would make sense to me if body soaps all contained something like olive oil and shave soaps didn't. But what about glycerine soaps? What makes a shave glycerine soap vs a body glycerine soap? I don't know. And no problem if you don't either. I just start getting curious, and there is likely a good explanation out there.

Bill
 
This would make sense to me if body soaps all contained something like olive oil and shave soaps didn't. But what about glycerine soaps? What makes a shave glycerine soap vs a body glycerine soap? I don't know. And no problem if you don't either. I just start getting curious, and there is likely a good explanation out there.

Bill

The term glycerin soap as it is typically used on this board is a misuse of the term. What we typically call glycerin based soaps would be better called melt, and pour soaps.

All soap contains some amount of glycerin. Some soaps contain more, and some soaps very little. Super hard soaps (aka triple milled) have less glycerin as I understand it, as the triple milling process removes glycerin. The glycerin can then be resold for other usage, generating the company more profit.

The soaps that are melt, and pour tend to be softer soaps something like VDH Deluxe. They are called melt and pour, as they can be re-batched (so you can add fragrance, add clay, add moisturizers, and so forth) by simply melting them.

By the way, I wasn't saying that all bath soaps contain Olive Oil, and all shaving soaps don't. This is clearly not the case. The point was, that olive oil is generally not found in large concentrations in shaving soaps that actually perform properly.
 
See http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2666962&postcount=8 for some information that I hope will be relevant.


Thank you for the link. That is a very interesting thread, I somehow figured there would be some "soap-geeks" on this board.

I still don't feel I understand how a soap maker would take the same basic ingredients and turn them into with a shaving soap or a body soap. Maybe I shouldn't care, and just accept that they are "different." But where's the fun in that?

Bill
 
Thank you for the link. That is a very interesting thread, I somehow figured there would be some "soap-geeks" on this board.

I still don't feel I understand how a soap maker would take the same basic ingredients and turn them into with a shaving soap or a body soap. Maybe I shouldn't care, and just accept that they are "different." But where's the fun in that?

Bill

I only know about traditional methods of soap-making, so I'll leave it to people who do it to explain what they use, but there's really a lot of different things that can go into shaving soap or bath soap and that'll effect it's outcome. I found more linkies to making it so you can see what goes into very generic shaving soap. And the first link has some anecdotal stuff from people who know people who make it.

http://www.straightrazorplace.com/forums/soaps-creams/20792-how-make-your-own-shaving-soap.html
http://www.teachsoap.com/shaving.html
http://candleandsoap.about.com/od/soaprecipes/a/cpshavingrecipe.htm
 
Thank you for the link. That is a very interesting thread, I somehow figured there would be some "soap-geeks" on this board.

I still don't feel I understand how a soap maker would take the same basic ingredients and turn them into with a shaving soap or a body soap. Maybe I shouldn't care, and just accept that they are "different." But where's the fun in that?

Bill


It's like making a sandwich or a pizza - same basic ingredients, completely different results.
 
The term glycerin soap as it is typically used on this board is a misuse of the term. What we typically call glycerin based soaps would be better called melt, and pour soaps.

All soap contains some amount of glycerin. Some soaps contain more, and some soaps very little. Super hard soaps (aka triple milled) have less glycerin as I understand it, as the triple milling process removes glycerin. The glycerin can then be resold for other usage, generating the company more profit.

The soaps that are melt, and pour tend to be softer soaps something like VDH Deluxe. They are called melt and pour, as they can be re-batched (so you can add fragrance, add clay, add moisturizers, and so forth) by simply melting them.

By the way, I wasn't saying that all bath soaps contain Olive Oil, and all shaving soaps don't. This is clearly not the case. The point was, that olive oil is generally not found in large concentrations in shaving soaps that actually perform properly.

When I'm saying a glycerine soap I'm thinking about something like the Van Der Hagen Glycerin Shave Soap. To untrained eyes it looks indistinguishable from a glycerine body soap. There, from what I gather, something that distinguishes these two sorts of similar looking soaps. I just wonder what it is?

Bill
 
When I'm saying a glycerine soap I'm thinking about something like the Van Der Hagen Glycerin Shave Soap. To untrained eyes it looks indistinguishable from a glycerine body soap. There, from what I gather, something that distinguishes these two sorts of similar looking soaps. I just wonder what it is?

Bill

Ooh! Ooh! Just because two things look the same, doesn't mean they are. It'd be like mixing up powdered sugar and flour in your baking. Or any number of white powders that can be similar looking. Corn starch vs powdered sugar...
 

ouch

Stjynnkii membörd dummpsjterd
You may not be satisfied with the answers you've received so far, so try this experiment:
  1. shave with a bar of your wife's bath soap
  2. shave with a high end shave soap
  3. decide if the former can be substituted for the latter

We promise to not make fun of you when you report back.
 
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