Creating Shaving Soap From Liquid Soap

[stripermanx]

I have a large quantity of anti-bacterial liquid hand soap that I would like to make into shaving soap, if at all possible. Does anyone know of a recipe or process that would allow me to do this? The final product would not have to be a solid shaving soap; it could be a solid or kept as a liquid, or even made into a "cream". I would like additional glycerin to be added as part of the recipe or process as the original liquid hand soap contains very little glycerin. All that really matters is that it creates a thick, creamy, long lasting lather. I would like to use a shaving brush with the final product. Any help or even a direction to follow would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

 

[kingfisher]

I don't have a recipe, but I feel pretty confident in telling you that you're never going to be able to make a good shaving lather out of liquid antibacterial hand soap. For starters, those things are detergents, not soaps. Secondly, the antibacterial chemicals in it might be sensitizing to a shaved face. Finally, the "lather" that those are designed to make is extremely bubbly, which would not translate well into a shaving lather.

 

[Mike Schutz]

Real shaving soap or cream is inexpensive enough. Stick to the real stuff.

 

[synapticmisfires]

I don't have a recipe, but I feel pretty confident in telling you that you're never going to be able to make a good shaving lather out of liquid antibacterial hand soap. For starters, those things are detergents, not soaps. Secondly, the antibacterial chemicals in it might be sensitizing to a shaved face. Finally, the "lather" that those are designed to make is extremely bubbly, which would not translate well into a shaving lather.

This.

My advice:

• If you're pursuing this for the antibacterial benefits, try a soap or cream with lots of anti-bacterial essential oils. Mama Bear Soaps sells them look for tea tree, for instance.
• If you're doing this to save money, I suggest a drug store level soap like VDH or Williams, as those are pretty cheap. Even a bar of Ivory or Palmolive bath soap might work, look for ones that are all soap, not detergent bars like Dove. A warning though, bath bars will rarely make as good of a lather as shaving soap
• If you like the liquid aspect, I suggest applying a shaving cream from a tube with your hands and then using the brush to lather it on your face.

For all three of those, consider Real Shaving Co. traditional shaving creams at Rite Aid: fairly cheap, lots of tea tree oil, and it comes in a squeeze tube.

I also have had success with melting VDH (a short burst in the microwave) and adding tea tree oil then letting it set up again. See the URL in my signature for more info.

 

[stripermanx]

Thank you to all who took the time to reply to my questions with your feedback and comments! Much appreciated!

 

[mparker762]

Some liquid antibacterial soaps are glycerin based, some are liquid soaps, some are detergents. But none of them can reasonably be turned into a good shaving soap.

You're in luck though - traditional hard shaving soap is extremely antibacterial. This includes soaps like Truefitt & Hill, DR Harris, Trumpers, Penhaligons, Gold-Dachs Spezial, etc. The other type of soap made from glycerin and clay (like Col. Conk's) does not possess this antibacterial capability. Traditional hard soap is made by combining fat, lye, and water which turn into soap. It turns out the cells walls of bacteria are mostly fat molecules, and when the lye comes in contact with those cell walls it rips them apart and turns them into soap - lye doesn't care whether the fat comes from palm trees, tallow, or bacteria. Bacteria are developing a resistance to the chemicals in the bactericidal soaps, but even after thousands of years of exposure to plain old soap they haven't evolved the ability to survive without their cell walls.

 

[synapticmisfires]

Some liquid antibacterial soaps are glycerin based, some are liquid soaps, some are detergents. But none of them can reasonably be turned into a good shaving soap.

You're in luck though - traditional hard shaving soap is extremely antibacterial. This includes soaps like Truefitt & Hill, DR Harris, Trumpers, Penhaligons, Gold-Dachs Spezial, etc. The other type of soap made from glycerin and clay (like Col. Conk's) does not possess this antibacterial capability. Traditional hard soap is made by combining fat, lye, and water which turn into soap. It turns out the cells walls of bacteria are mostly fat molecules, and when the lye comes in contact with those cell walls it rips them apart and turns them into soap - lye doesn't care whether the fat comes from palm trees, tallow, or bacteria. Bacteria are developing a resistance to the chemicals in the bactericidal soaps, but even after thousands of years of exposure to plain old soap they haven't evolved the ability to survive without their cell walls.

Traditional soap is very, very good when used with hot water at eliminating bacteria on a surface. Washing hands in hot water with regular soap is about as good as antibacterial detergent, according to the UMich School of Public Health.

But actually, it's not the lye that does it. If there were free floating lye in soap, it would saponify our skin too. (Which is an extremely painful process if the lye is not promptly rinsed off and eats through to the nerves). Soapmakers usually put extra fat in their soap just to avoid such a mistake. It's the combination of hot water, the washing motion, and the fact that soap breaks the surface tension of the water that makes it get bacteria off of hands. Bill Nye the Science Guy puts it best: "soap makes water wetter".

 

[cymric]

All that really matters is that it creates a thick, creamy, long lasting lather. I would like to use a shaving brush with the final product. Any help or even a direction to follow would be greatly appreciated.

Without a serious analysis of the soap you're basically mucking about; that said the liqud soap would probably need a good dollop of a mixture of stearic and coconut acid to create a lather. Whether or not that lather would be worth the effort of tracking down suppliers of those chemicals in the right grades is another matter. My advice: save the money, and spend it on a pre-packaged shaving cream or soap which is known to lather well from the start.

 

[mretzloff]

that said the liqud soap would probably need a good dollop of a mixture of stearic and coconut acid to create a lather.

Unfortunately, that would not work. You would need to saponify the coconut and stearic acid, which would leaving with with a chunk of coconut/stearic acid and liquid soap.

 

[cymric]

Unfortunately, that would not work. You would need to saponify the coconut and stearic acid, which would leaving with with a chunk of coconut/stearic acid and liquid soap.

Ehm... Stearic acid doesn't need to be saponified, and neither does coconut acid. You can't, in fact, because there is nothing to saponify. Had I specified 'palm oil' or 'coconut oil', then matters would be different. Of course in order to dissolve the acids properly the potassium salts would have to be made, but that's easy. Just add (potassium) lye, and cool. The addition of lye in this case is not to promote de-esterification ('saponify'), but to promote the reaction

C-C-C-...-C-COOH + OH-  ==> C-C-C-...-C-COO- + H2O

and by adding additional KCl and refrigeration you 'salt out' the ingredients the OP needs. In all probability you can purchase the potassium salts straight from a supplier ('potassium stearate'), although I'm not sure about 'potassium cocoate'. That's more of an intermediate you synthesise on the fly.