EJ Soap - what it is made from

[ghostknife]

Hi there,
so I've been struggling a bit with this EJ Sandalwood soap I got as a free gift with my brush. I just can't get a decent lather with it, i'm going to try a better technique as I just found in the " How to make great lather from a soap ~ Tutorial" but i'm wondering is this a tallow or glycerin soap?
I need to put into another dish and wondering if I should break out the zyliss cheese grater or if I can microwave it?

Thanks

 

[ziplepingouin]

Here are the ingredients: Potassium Palmate, Sodium Palmate, Potassium Stearate, Potassium Palm Kernelate, Sodium Stearate, Sodium Palm Kernelate, Glycerin, Aqua, Palm Kernel Acid, Capryl/Capramdopropyl Betain, Parfum, Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice, Linalool, Benzyl Benzoate, Butylphenyl Methylpropional, Benzyl Alcohol, Citronellol, Limonene, Geraniol, Pentasodium Pentetate, Tetrasodium Etidronate

It appears there is no tallow in it...

 

[xillion]

Ingredients from my box of EJ Sea Buckthorn soap are listed as:

Potassium Palmate, Sodium Palmate, Potassium Stearate, Potassium Palm Kernelate, Sodium Stearate, Sodium Palm Kernelate, Glycerin, Aqua (Water), Palm Kernal Acid, Capryl / Capramidolpropyl Betaine, Hippophae Rhamnoides (Sea Buckthorn) Fruit Extract, Parfum, Hexyl Cinnamal, Limonene, Linalool, Pentasodium Pentetate, Tetrasodium Etidronate.

 

[ghostknife]

That was probably on the box which I threw out without thinking about it. Maybe I should still shave/grate it down just to be safe.

 

[xillion]

I had some trouble with my EJ Sandalwood when I first got it. But after I used it a few times it became much easier to build great lather. I read in another thread that there can sometimes be a coating on the outside of cake soaps. Try running the soap under some warm water and rubbing it with your hands to get rid of the coating.

 

[Son]

Try putting few drops of hot water on top of the soap few minutes before loading the brush. No need to fully dip the soap in water, just few drops to soften the top layer a bit and to ease the loading of the soap into brush. Then, make sure to load enough soap into brush (soap is hard, make sure to work it out well). If you are making lather in bowl, while making the lather, add few drops of water during the process, depending the consistency of the lather.

While not a lather champion (only in terms of ease of lathering), this soap is not that difficult to make a good lather.

As a side note, my note and experience is related to Muehle 2009/10 product formulation (new formula and it is supposed to be the same as EJ). Older ones I have no experience with.

 

[Shave Cat]

In my experience, hard milled vegetable oil based soaps will not melt properly in a microwave, even though they contain no tallow. Soaps such as Colonel Conk, VDH, and cold process vegetable oil based soaps available from our many artisan vendors may be safely microwaved.

-Clarke

 

[ghostknife]

Thanks for the help, i tried the water and followed the tutorial, it worked better but I still don't like the shave from it. Razor seems to get stuck or grab at the skin like theres not enough lubrication, I don't have this problem with the porasso at all and I like that much more. Willing to accept it could be (is?) my technique that is at fault. It's still early days and I haven't even tried all my razor/balde/soap combos yet, but the number of possible combo's is rapidly increasing!