Upcoming Artisan Soap Makers?

[Schnitzel52]

So many of the artisan soapmakers out there get their "information" from message boards or new soapmaking books for products such as shaving soaps and shaving creams. Often you will see things like Castor Oil INCI name: Ricinus Communis (Castor) Seed Oil which makes a soap that bubbles but those bubbles are large and do not create the "foam" type of lather that works the best for shaving. It also makes a very "water soluble" soap which rinses away easily but it rinses away too easily which doesn't help for shaving. They also use things like "bentonite clay" for "slip and glide" but what it actually does is to dull the razor blade! These are ideas that often come from these more modern resources! Shaving Soap and Shaving Cream are products that have been around for the last hundred or more years for Shaving Cream and many hundreds of years for Shaving Soap and what most artisan soapmakers don't do is to research formulas from old soapmaking books, cosmetic chemistry books and patents which would show examples of formulas that are similar to those "old" companies who the guys here go to for as their "old standards" from long known, respected companies!

The key here is the Ingredients list!

When you are making your selections for shaving soaps and shaving creams the most important thing to do is to look at the Ingredients list! Get to know what your "favorites" out there contain, get an idea as the the order of the ingredients (which also plays a role in this) of your favorites and see how they compare. As an example here's a list for Taylor of Old Bond Street Shaving Cream: INGREDIENTS: Aqua (Water), Stearic Acid, Myristic Acid, Potassium Hydroxide, Coconut Fatty Acid, Glycerin, Parfum (Fragrance), Triethanolamine, Sodium Hydroxide, Benzyl Alcohol, Methylchloroisothiazolinone, Methylisothiazolinone. If you check around you will find other British Shaving Creams with a very similar list in a very similar order hence there is a good chance that they will be similar in performance. The same should apply to shaving soaps. If you do your research for either of these types of products you may be able to find a commercial or artisan product that works for you! There are artisan soapmakers who do try to "emulate" older or commercial products out there and who do the proper research and those are the artisans who will be able to provide you with what you need!

Bentonite, eh? I'll pass.
Don't see any need to put oilfield drilling mud on my face.

 

[ShaveNut]

Up and coming;
Cutting Edge.

That get little fanfare:
Beehive
Black Tie Razor

Interesting, I’ll have to take a look and try them out!

 

[PreachTheWord]

I like trying new soaps for various makers, but I don't really play the "new base" or "latest drop" game. I just buy what looks interesting to me. If it's an artisan that I have not tried before I read a lot of review before purchasing. Oh, and I agree with the others that M&M soaps are fantastic.

 

[Slash]

I looked at Murphy & McNeil, whoever they are....$20usd from a no name soap maker that won't be around in 6 months or will be on Ver. 2.67a of their soap. I'll pass.

They do have fancy labels and descriptions of soaps that are longer than some short stories though.

I promise if you try this soap you will be impressed. You can order samples too, that’s what I did at first and instantly knew they were the truth!


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[rudyt]

The market is already saturated with too many "artisan" makers who really aren't artisan by definition. The word has lost its meaning in terms of soap making and other handcrafted items.

As the kids on Reddit say, have an upvote.

 

[Timeclo]

I just ordered one of Spearhead Shaving's 17.2 experimental shave soap. It's going pretty cheap right now as a test so it might be a good way to dabble in different soaps.

 

[JerYnkFan]

I just tried out Southern Witchcraft recently. Really interesting scents, was impressed!

They are the only soap I buy now.


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[Scaramouche]

when i first found out that people use used soaps, i was flabbergasted to say the least

Plenty of vintage razors and brushes used around here, as well as used SR blades. And soap is like ice - once the surface layer is removed it's new. Soap, unlike the other products mentioned, is also antibacterial all by itself, and any container is easily disinfected. So no objections to "used" soap. In the case of M&M specifically, it's an interesting business model - will be intrigued to see how it succeeds, and also intrigued by what the the connection might be between Texas and Éire. They do seem to have a good grasp of Gaeilge though. Their soaps are top-performing, with interesting and unique fragrances. My main - and minor - sticking point with M&M is that the quality of their packaging is pretty poor. They charge premium prices - and probably justified - but their label ink is soluble in alcohol (the main ingredient in their AS), and I think maybe slightly soluble in water (it is still wet shaving, yes?). Mine are already smeared and unreadable after minimal use (I'll use a laundry marker to label). The flow restrictor on their AS bottles is thin, cheap plastic, and one already failed and fell inside the bottle. Hard to believe they have failed to notice this. They can do better if they want to be considered a premium artisan vendor, and charge for it.

 

[kingfisher]

So many of the artisan soapmakers out there get their "information" from message boards or new soapmaking books for products such as shaving soaps and shaving creams. Often you will see things like Castor Oil INCI name: Ricinus Communis (Castor) Seed Oil which makes a soap that bubbles but those bubbles are large and do not create the "foam" type of lather that works the best for shaving. .....

It seems we have this back-and-forth over and over again. Having said that, as long as you keep posting this, I'll keep responding with the fact that all of my favorite shave soaps have castor oil in them, and generally pretty close to the top of the list. Not only do they NOT form large bubbles that don't work well, but these are the soaps that, for me, usually produce the densest, richest lather.

So, yes, I study ingredients lists before I try a new soap, but, unlike you, I find the appearance of castor oil within the first 5 or 6 ingredients generally means that the soap will produce a beautiful lather of the type that I favor.

 

[Hannah's Dad]

It seems we have this back-and-forth over and over again. Having said that, as long as you keep posting this, I'll keep responding with the fact that all of my favorite shave soaps have castor oil in them, and generally pretty close to the top of the list. Not only do they NOT form large bubbles that don't work well, but these are the soaps that, for me, usually produce the densest, richest lather.

So, yes, I study ingredients lists before I try a new soap, but, unlike you, I find the appearance of castor oil within the first 5 or 6 ingredients generally means that the soap will produce a beautiful lather of the type that I favor.

Two of my absolute favorites contain castor oil — B&M Reserve and M&M. They are yogurty-slick.

 

[SliceOfLife]

There's this small artisan maker named "Williams". They're on version 2.0 of their recipe right now, which doesn't hold a candle to 1.0, but I'm hoping they listen to feedback and revert the recipe when they release 3.0

And Dan, that shiny, wet yogurt look you like is pretty recognizable as from castor, so I'm not surprised. The lather also will often have a tacky sensation, especially if you don't add enough water.

Castor will make soap bubbly if you put too much in. The fats in it make bubbly lather... but they make less airy bubbles than most of the alternatives; which if the soap is balanced for can make good shaving lather. You wouldn't want to swap coconut oil out for castor in a recipe and call it a day; but if you're trying to minimize the need for isolated stearic acid in a shaving soap recipe, castor can help with that. It's also a very liquid fat which most artisans probably like because it's easy to measure/portion and can help get a base going without risking scorching the way some solid fats can. Downside is the soap it makes is quite soft. A little hidden advantage is any unsaponified castor tends to extrude from soaps as they harden, making extraction from molds easier.

 

[ShaverAZ]

I already have Castor oil on hand to produce "dry" patches for my flintlocks, so maybe I'll try a minuscule dab next time I lather up some Williams, just to see if it makes an already solid soap even better.

 

[kingfisher]

I already have Castor oil on hand to produce "dry" patches for my flintlocks, so maybe I'll try a minuscule dab next time I lather up some Williams, just to see if it makes an already solid soap even better.

I think a little glycerin would probably make williams lather better.

Be aware that this discussion about castor oil as an ingedient in soap focuses on saponified castor oil, not regular castor oil.

 

[SliceOfLife]

There's no telling what'll happen. I suspect the bit of oil on our skin makes for easier lathering face or palm vs in a bowl; so perhaps a drop of castor oil would improve your lather, but as mentioned, the properties mentioned have to do with the soaps formed from the LCFA's within the castor when it is saponified, not the oil in its original state.

 

[babydials]

Not sure the age of either company but they are new to me. Found Moon Soaps last year and Purely Skinful this year and am a big fan of both. I should elaborate that for Purely Skinful I am a bigger fan of the bear fat soaps than the beef fat creams. Have not tried the deer fat one yet.

 

[babydials]

"Couple newer soap makers that I have noticed:

Lotus eater soap company, arsenal grooming, spearhead shaving (testing out soaps), Soapy Science (been making soaps a while but I don't see them a lot), and etcs."

Have you tried any of these soaps? Did you enjoy them? Any vendor issues?

 

[kingfisher]

"Couple newer soap makers that I have noticed:

Lotus eater soap company, arsenal grooming, spearhead shaving (testing out soaps), Soapy Science (been making soaps a while but I don't see them a lot), and etcs."

Have you tried any of these soaps? Did you enjoy them? Any vendor issues?

Not the OP, but Soapy Science has been firmly in my rotation for the last three years or so. Used it just last night, in fact. Very nice soaps. One of my favorites.

 

[ShaverAZ]

I got out my bottle of castor oil, a sterling silver 1930's vintage salt spoon (1/8 tsp), and went to work. Williams is a basic-basic soap with simple ingredients and was my pick for a good test platform.
Using my normal routine for Williams: Soak and shake out my cheapest synthetic brush; put 3-4 drops of distilled water atop a dry Williams puck; 100 swirl to loads up my brush; whip up a dense lather in my favorite glass bowl adding 5 drops at a time of water.
Next I added 1/8 tsp castor oil, and whipped it up into my lather. It allows more water to be added while maintaining a thick & dense lather, but it does look like the lather bubbles aren't as fine as without the castor oil.
I added 1/8 tsp of glycerin & incorporated it into the lather & the the lather bubbles are now as fine as with the original Willliams suds, or maybe finer.
The advantage of adding castor oil and glycerin is that the lather can be more hydrated, while maintaining a dense & thick lather. It is plenty slick & IMO worth the miniscule effort needed to add the extra 2 ingredients.

 

[MilfordNJGuy]

So, yes, I study ingredients lists before I try a new soap, but, unlike you, I find the appearance of castor oil within the first 5 or 6 ingredients generally means that the soap will produce a beautiful lather of the type that I favor.

You said it all when you said "within the first 5 or 6 ingredients" because typically Stearic Acid is the first ingredient in a traditional Shaving Cream and most often it is in a large percentage, often Myristic Acid and Coconut fatty Acids are next and if you are seeing Castor Oil in a formula in the 5th or 6th spot it may only be in a very small amount and unless you have the formulation you'll never know for sure but in my massive shaving cream formulation research I have seen photos of the lather that comes from formulations with Castor Oil in them and more often than not they contain small bubbles rather than the dense bubble-less foam that the three ingredients I listed before typically produce and it what is expected in this kind of product.

 

[agrippas]

Oz Shaving makes excellent performing soaps