Homemade shave soap

[jacobcaz]

My sister is a soap maker and today she and I got together and whipped up a couple of batches of shaving soap. I'm kind of stoked to try out my own home made soap!

She did a bunch of research on shaving recipes and we ended up making two batches with slightly different oils & fragrances.

Batch one is supposed to be a very slippery, "lathery" soap we scented with lavender EO and a hint of rosemary EO.

Batch two is supposed to be the same soap mix as William's and is scented with tea tree oil, lavender EO, and a touch of lemon EO.

We cold processed and then hot processed these and cast 'em into small bowls for lathering. The hard part now is waiting a day or two before trying them out (don't think lye burns would be a good thing).

All-in-all I thought the soap making process was very interesting. I've never made it before. Anyone else out there make their own shave soap?

I'll post a follow up on our success (or failure) here in a few days, but just thought it was cool & wanted to share.

 

[CapeCodJay]

Cool let us know how it goes!

 

[andy hopper]

Cool let us know how it goes!

It's must be nice to have a soup maker in the Family.It looks like you've done your home work. I'v done my own Pre-Shave oil. Did some research and went nuts over a Whole Foods. Mine smells and works better than that $24.99 a 4 once bottle stuff.Let us know how your soaps work out. Best of luck. The great thing about "Home Mades", we know whats in them because we put it there!

 

[Advil]

if it works out, i'll gladly pay you for some, especially batch one!

glycerin soap i assume?


but really... i'll pay you for a puck!

 

[cesium]

What are the steps to making your own soap? I'd love to try making it, right from the ground up, but I can't find recipes. I have seen the basic steps, but I have no idea how much lye to use:tallow ratio. What a great thread that would be....

 

[jacobcaz]

@Advil - the soap has glycerin in it, it's a byproduct of the lye/fat chemical reaction.

This is fully-from-scratch cold processed soap. My sister did the leg work on ratios of lye & oils to use. She wanted to make a tallow batch too, but ran out of time to get to the store to get any lard. So that'll be round two.

These all have various combinations of the oils in them like castor oil, safflower oil, shea butter, coconut oil, olive oil, I'm probably forgetting one or two.

The process is actually not nearly as difficult as I would have thought. Everything is measured by weight.

• We stated by making a lye/water slurry (and set it aside 'cause it gets really warm).
  
• Then we measured all the oils into a pan and heated on low until they were all melted together.
  
• Then we added the EOs and FOs for smell.
  
• Next we added bentonite to the heated oil mixture and mixed it as best we could (the bentonite is a clay that makes soap slippery).
  
• Finally we waited until the temperature of the oils and lye were appropriate (don't know, maybe 105F or so?) and mixed them together.
  
• Then my sister blended it all with a blender stick until it made a trace and we poured it into molds.

That's the cold process...process. We set about half of the soap out to cure over the next 4 - 6 weeks and the other half she then put in an oven at about 170F for two hours (she called it hot processing, but said it was really called by another name; you make a cold process soap and accelerate it by heating it in a low temp oven).

I tried lathering the soap from the oven this morning to see how it would work and it whipped up a nice lather very quickly. It was also nice and slippery because of the bentonite. I'll give it another day or two before I slop it on my mug to make sure the lye is all converted to soap so I don't burn myself!

One thing I've already learned; we used to much fragrance for the size batches we made. We deliberitly tried to make small batches since it was a test, and they're very fragrant! Next time, less smell-stuff.

My sister is interested in selling her soap if she can come up with a good recipe and nice scent combination. So she'll tweak from here and I may have some if everyone is interested, but it'll be a few weeks at the earliest.

I just thought it would be incredibly cool to make a shave soap from scratch and then be able to use it. I still really like my Proraso, so I'll have to be a special reason to pull me away from cream!

 

[Confilo]

I'll volunteer to be the guinea pig for round 2,

 

[ambrose]

Ive been curious to make some tallow based shave soap. Let us know how it turns out

 

[Darjeeling Express]

Outstanding. I can't wait to hear how it all turns out. Lavender and Lemon oil - mmm.

 

[FrankPoole]

I've decided to leave it to the comapnies. All my attempts were such dismal failures that came no where near a decent shaving soap.

Unless you get personal satisfaction out of it, leave it to your favorite brand is my philosophy now.

 

[Not4you]

Just curious - roughly how much did it cost for the materials for this soap??

making soap definitely interests me but I think the mess and multiple attempts with trial and error would make it a tough one to get past SWMBO. If I get into a self fulfilling part of the shaving hobby I think it will be restoring straights so I can play in the garage and not mess up the kitchen

but I too would be interested in trying your early trials of this homemade soap. let me know if you will be PIF'ing or selling any ...

 

[goose]

Frank,

I agree with you. I actually make my own bath soaps at home. They are very gentle and work great with my sensitive skin. They don't however provide the cushion needed to be a great shave soap. I leave that to the firms that have been doing this for decades.

Clint

 

[soapbox]

It's must be nice to have a soap maker in the Family.

Yes it is!

Me: "hey dad, will you make me some shaving soap?"
Dad: "uh, okay, what do you want in it?"

(two weeks pass...)

Dad: "ok, so shaving soap usually has certain clays in it, but occasionally added glycerine, but the melt-and-pour stuff isn't really soap, and isn't as good for shave soap; next, you've got to ..." (etc.)