First time soap making.hot process-shave soap

[Dilbone]

Well, I've use VDH deluxe pretty much exclusively for the past 4 years of wet shaving and haven't had any issues with even wanting to try something "higher" end until recently. I put an order in last week to Garry for some samples and am waiting on those to get here. Meanwhile I've been reading a lot about homemade soap and how difficult it is to get it right. I saw someone here post a recipe of shortening, coconut oil, and hemp oil with the shortening as the base and coconut/hemp at 5-10% each while using NaOH. I decided I'd change the hemp to castor oil, as I had read that castor oil is good for the creaminess, and see what I'd get. I have never made soap before however, as a physics/physical science teacher I am familiar with NaOH and chemical reactions so it didn't seem too difficult to follow the process. I'm the type of guy that just does stuff to see if I can...whether it's building guitars, a motorcycle, brewing beer, running marathons...and other stupid stuff...I just have a sick need for a challenge and that has cause me to have waaaaaay too many hobbies. I really hope this doesn't become another one.
Here's the process/ingredients I used this morning...with results and advice requested at the end.

I decided to go with an 8oz. batch just to have a small trial run with all local inexpensive ingredients.


I got my oils all measured out and melted in the crock pot, added my NaOH, and this is it 5 minutes in


10 minutes in...I really need a stick blender if this does become a hobby


15 minutes...at this point I'm beginning to wonder if anything is really gonna happen


20 minutes and it's just starting to show some thickness like gravy...had to snap the pic quick to show that though


25 minutes


30 minutes


35 minutes


40 minutes


45 minutes, it is VERY slow incremental increase but it is finally beginning to thicken close to trace. At this point it takes a few seconds for the swipe to close up


50 minutes...this has to be a good trace here...runny pudding...at this point it's gonna start to cook


1:05 I let it sit for 10-15 and it was definitely a thicker pudding


1:25 or so and it was definitely cooking


1:40 or so and it was starting to get that mashed potato look to it


1:50 or so and the waxy mashed potato look was here and it was getting pretty dry...hard to even spread it out since it was such a small batch and a large crockpot


2:00 ish and it was passing the zap test and was getting extremely dry so I added the fragrance oil and called it done. My wife made candles years ago and still has several different oils. I looked through them to find which ones were skin safe and then picked one that would be very subtle and only give enough scent to cover the not so pleasant raw soap smell. I think I used less than 1/4oz, about 5 or 6grams.


packed it in a mug with some plastic wrap so I could actually pull it out and slice it into two nice sized slices.



A couple of hours after cooking I decided I was going to test shave with it. It makes a ton of lather but it's too airy and dissipates almost immediately. I tried to keep it dry and load up a lot of soap, but when it would need water and I'd add a bit the lather would explode then die. The good thing is that it is REALLY slick.



I shaved with it and had to continuously re-lather my face as I went. The lather was nearly undetectable on my face, but still as slick as snot. I had a very pleasant irritation free shave...it was just PITA to have to continuously re-lather and re-wet my face. My face was nice and hydrated after the shave...the soap wasn't drying at all and felt great. If the lather had any staying power at all it would be a GREAT soap. Oh well, it was worth a shot. I don't know if there's anything else I can do to this to increase the lather stability or what to add or try if I do make another batch. Any suggestions are welcome.

Here's the soapcalc info. I know most folks will say to add stearic acid and KOH to the recipe, but if I have to outsource materials and make orders online then I probably won't bother with it. If there's some things I can try that are readily available I may do that. Any input is appreciated though.


and here it is out of the mug and cut into 2-5oz pucks...my wife used one of them in the tub tonight and said it was actually quite nice...huh, I guess it may be good for something. I need to look at my reciepts and see if I can figure out exactly how much this batch cost but I know it wasn't more than a couple of bucks

 

[Dilbone]

well, I just found out from another thread that stearic acid can be bought from hobby lobby...locally...hmmm

$5.99 a lb for small batches wouldn't be too bad

I just ran another soapcalc recipe with stearic taking the place of 40% of the 85% I had for the shortening and got this. I may have to try this...it looks like this 10oz of soap cost a grand total of $1.66. I suppose the $5.99 a lb won't kill me especially if I use a 40% off coupon!! Man I'm cheap...

 

[SliceOfLife]

That recipe should work reasonably well for oils, but you're likely going to want to pick up some KOH and start experimenting with KOH:NaOH ratio's. 50:50 is a good place to start.
I personally would consider your 1:05 picture to be "trace", and 1:25 to be closer to what I look for before I start moving to molds.

 

[rodmonster]

Way too much fun for a Sunday afternoon. WalMart shortening!?! Who wouda thunk it!

 

[Dilbone]

That recipe should work reasonably well for oils, but you're likely going to want to pick up some KOH and start experimenting with KOH:NaOH ratio's. 50:50 is a good place to start.
I personally would consider your 1:05 picture to be "trace", and 1:25 to be closer to what I look for before I start moving to molds.

Thanks SliceOfLife,

I doubt I do anything with KOH at this point but that could very well change. Of course I could probably "borrow" a few grams from work but I doubt I will. My goal was to see if I could get a decent soap from only locally available ingredients.

Looking back I would agree that 1:05 would be a better pic of trace....I was just hoping that it was good enough after 50 min of stirring so I could take a break lol

Hopefully the stearic acid addition will speed up trace on this next trial batch [emoji3]

 

[BSAGuy]

That's a very interesting and informative thread. Good luck with your soap making. Sounds like batch #2 will be spot on.

 

[Dilbone]

Way too much fun for a Sunday afternoon. WalMart shortening!?! Who wouda thunk it!

Absolutely!!!! I saw diamondtim say he used GV shortening as his base oil and I thought what the heck it's worth a shot. He said he got good results as is but mine has zero stability and is way to airy

That's a very interesting and informative thread. Good luck with your soap making. Sounds like batch #2 will be spot on.

Thanks BSAGuy,
I hope it will. I think it be would be cool to be able to make a solid performing shave soap from only basic locally found ingredients...fingers crossed. I think I'm gonna pick up some stearic from hobby lobby tonight

 

[Skinny Rogers]

Subd for the progress!

 

[Brian G r a f s t r o m]

Cool stuff. thanks for posting, and good luck with your next batch!

 

[Purplemonkey]

What is it with us science teachers and making soap? I did a cold process batch with one of my students as a lab for grade 10 chemistry. It is curing and we will be testing it in about a week and a half. We didn't do shaving soap, just bath soap as she doesn't have much of a need for the shaving soap.

Looking at your soapcalc recipe, I think your castor oil percentage might be too high. Based on all the reading and research I did prior to "guiding" my student through making her own formula, I am under the impression that castor oil has a narrow range sweet spot where it increases density of lather without making it too airy; too little and not enough lather but too much and you get too many bubbles - which sounds like the issue you are having with your first batch. Maybe something to look into. Also might I suggest putting a little unrefined shea butter into the mix? It should help with post-shave feel.

 

[JBLA]

I doubt I do anything with KOH at this point but that could very well change....

KOH is, IMHO, ESSENTIAL for shaving soap. The difference it makes to the lather quality cannot be overstated, especially if you have hard water. It's worth the hassle of ordering online.

Also, if you're not using significant portions of stearic acid, invest in a stick blender, it speeds up the trace time considerably.

Good luck!

 

[jzuzphreek]

Shouldn't be too hard to obtain. Hobbyists guys... would this KOH from Amazon suffice?

http://www.amazon.com/Potassium-Hydroxide-Flakes-Koh-Lbs/dp/B001EDK0WK

 

[Dilbone]

Subd for the progress!

Cool stuff. thanks for posting, and good luck with your next batch!

Thanks guys, hopefully there'll be something worth seeing...haha

 

[Dilbone]

What is it with us science teachers and making soap? I did a cold process batch with one of my students as a lab for grade 10 chemistry. It is curing and we will be testing it in about a week and a half. We didn't do shaving soap, just bath soap as she doesn't have much of a need for the shaving soap.

Looking at your soapcalc recipe, I think your castor oil percentage might be too high. Based on all the reading and research I did prior to "guiding" my student through making her own formula, I am under the impression that castor oil has a narrow range sweet spot where it increases density of lather without making it too airy; too little and not enough lather but too much and you get too many bubbles - which sounds like the issue you are having with your first batch. Maybe something to look into. Also might I suggest putting a little unrefined shea butter into the mix? It should help with post-shave feel.

Yeah, I didn't think that 7.5% Castor was a big deal but maybe it was. I thought I'd at least have to get above 10 before detrimental effects were caused. I'm a little leary of changing more than one thing at a time. I'd like to see what just adding the stearic does without changing the coconut or castor....decisions decisions...

KOH is, IMHO, ESSENTIAL for shaving soap. The difference it makes to the lather quality cannot be overstated, especially if you have hard water. It's worth the hassle of ordering online.

Also, if you're not using significant portions of stearic acid, invest in a stick blender, it speeds up the trace time considerably.

Good luck!

I don't doubt what you're saying, but my goal at first here is to make a good shave soap without having to order anything online. Not because I can't or won't...just to see if one can make a decent shave soap with only what one has on hand. After the next batch I doubt the experiment will be over...at least until I run out of what I have currently haha

Shouldn't be too hard to obtain. Hobbyists guys... would this KOH from Amazon suffice?

http://www.amazon.com/Potassium-Hydroxide-Flakes-Koh-Lbs/dp/B001EDK0WK

That should work just fine AFAIK.

We've got 5-6 lbs of it at school that we never use. I asked one of our chem teachers about it and he wasn't even sure we had any because they almost exclusively use NaOH instead in any labs they do. I'm sure I could use the 17 grams or so I'd need for one of these 8 oz test batches and no one would care at all. I'm sure my principal wouldn't.

But........I want to do this without it first so I have a base line and am able to see the effect of each ingredient change as I go.

 

[bri62]

You will see a big difference with KOH and stearic acid. Try increasing the coconut oil to 25ish % , stearic acid to 40% and the GV Shortning to 35%. Don't worry about all the soap your making. You can always use it as a bath bar. Let us know how your next batch
turns out.

 

[Dilbone]

You will see a big difference with KOH and stearic acid. Try increasing the coconut oil to 25ish % , stearic acid to 40% and the GV Shortning to 35%. Don't worry about all the soap your making. You can always use it as a bath bar. Let us know how your next batch
turns out.

Thanks bri62,

you suggest to cut out the castor oil altogether then?

 

[Dilbone]

You gotta love the standing 40% off coupon at hobby lobby... My question at this point is do I need to make sure things are in the soap for conditioning purposes or is the 5% superfat going to provide some of that? Still not sure on the castor oil level either, but I'm inclined to keep everything the same and just do that last recipe I posted above...

 

[Dilbone]

Here is the 2nd batch...the one of the recipe above with 40% stearic.

As soon as I added the NaOH it locked up like a dry crumbly sugar cookie dough...I added some additional water to try and loosen it up enough to even mix it at all without a lot of success. I suppose it'll be left to cook for a while and then I'll see if it loosens up as the stearic heats back up after having added the lye. I suppose the lye being cooler temp than the oils when added didn't help as the stearic went back to solid as well as saponification happening so quickly...I think both of those things happening simultaneously gave me issues...maybe

Hopefully the additional water won't cause any issue...may have to take the lid off after a while and let it evaporate out...I'm not even sure how much extra I put in.

 

[Dilbone]

after about 15-20 minutes of the crock pot on high and letting it cook it became a cross between vaseline and waxy mashed potatoes. It was definitely loose enough to begin stirring and looked like what I would expect them to. I then turned down the crock pot to low and started getting my fragrance oil measured and my mold ready.


I shouldn't have turned it down to low...it just wasn't hot enough to keep the stearic soft...I had to turn it back to high and wait a while before I could even add the fragrance oil and once I did it pretty well locked up again. I then had to wait a while again to get it soft enough to be able to even get it into the mold.

Here's the mold...3"pvc with a 2 liter bottle cut and taped as a liner and plastic wrap on the bottom


I used a beer bottle to try to smash it down from the top a little bit...I'm gonna have to come up with something else that's flat on the bottom though



I got it out of the mold within an hour or so...it was setting up and pretty hard already. Three 3.5oz pucks...not too bad. Pretty much a year's supply for me


I scraped out a bunch of what was left out of the crock pot and pressed it into a mug with a bit of water to get it to stick


I loaded it for about 30sec or so...maybe more...way longer than I do for the VDH deluxe fairly soft puck. I started to lather in my hand and had to add a bit of water a few times and got this. It's not a perfect lather, but I think it will more than work for me



It still has a bit too much air, but overall it's 1000% better than the first batch. After hand lathering for a while and rinsing my hand definitely didn't feel dry or greasy...it just felt good. I'm anxious to try it. Now I'm wondering what changing the coconut oil and castor oil ratios would do. If going one way or the other would get me smaller bubbles and a more dense lather it'd be worth doing another batch.

 

[bri62]

I use an temporary cap on my tube from the plumbing dept at home depot. Let us know how it shaves. It looks like it really seized up at the beginning. Did you end up using any KOH?