Quite interesting. If you want more feedback on the success of your recipe, I'm sure many of us would volunteer to try your soap.
Homemade Shaving Soap - An Illustrated Guide to a Test Batch - LONG POST
- Thread starter JBLA
- Start date
This is something I have been thinking about doing, glad you went through all the steps to show how its done. I need to sit and play with soapcalc a bit and see how different things react. As a former brewer stuff like this gets me all geeked out.
Very cool - glad you had success! 
Please count me in if you're looking for test subjects!!!
Please count me in if you're looking for test subjects!!!
That. Is. Wicked. Awesome. 
Subscribed! I have been wanting to try to make my own soap and this just might be the encouragement that pushes me over the edge. A weekend trip to the thrift shops to find a spare crock pot and blending stick is in order first.
Thanks for the post! This is going to be fun to follow!! I am a sucker for making my own stuff!!! Now I am sitting here thinking...
Subscribed as well! I was looking into doing something similar a couple weeks back, but had no idea where to start!
- Thread starter
- #28
Thanks for the kind words folks!
For those of you thinking about giving it a shot, it really is as easy as the pics show (which was one of the reasons I posted it). If you can make pasta (and I mean boiling water and tossing in the spaghetti, and heating up the sauce, not hand rolling the noodles), you can make your own soap.
For you frugal types, the total materials cost for somewhere around 25oz. or so of soap came out to $5-6, which, if I'd chopped it up into 10 2.5oz bars is $.50-$.60 per bar (or $0.20-$0.25/oz), so it's pretty cost effective. (Doing the math on this suggests that this may be a potentially worthwhile business endeavor, as the soap this recipe is based on goes for $53 and change for a 200g / 7oz. bar, which comes to $7.50+/oz.)
Feel free to post questions / PM me if you need more info.
For those of you thinking about giving it a shot, it really is as easy as the pics show (which was one of the reasons I posted it). If you can make pasta (and I mean boiling water and tossing in the spaghetti, and heating up the sauce, not hand rolling the noodles), you can make your own soap.
For you frugal types, the total materials cost for somewhere around 25oz. or so of soap came out to $5-6, which, if I'd chopped it up into 10 2.5oz bars is $.50-$.60 per bar (or $0.20-$0.25/oz), so it's pretty cost effective. (Doing the math on this suggests that this may be a potentially worthwhile business endeavor, as the soap this recipe is based on goes for $53 and change for a 200g / 7oz. bar, which comes to $7.50+/oz.)
Feel free to post questions / PM me if you need more info.
That is just so cool! Does the process differ substantially if you were to make a tallow-based soap?
Subscribed as well. This seems awesome. If you are going to be selling sample slivers count me in. Or if you need a test subject. Seems like great. Are you going to dedicate that crock pot to only soap making now?
- Thread starter
- #31
@neilysano - I do use the crockpot exclusively for soap, but that's probably got more to do with my lack of interest in crockpot cookery than anything else, since you pretty much rinse out the soap and it's clean. (Crockpots are pretty affordable, so it may be worth picking up a second one if you're going to try this and have the space.)
@mdkmdk - I haven't done a tallow soap (I'm vegan), but I believe the process is pretty much the same. The only thing you need to account forhttp://badgerandblade.com/vb/member.php/63265-Mdkmdk is the fact that melting beef fat has a somewhat more pungent smell than vegetable oils (to say the least. Maybe it's just me, but after using vegetable based soaps for a while, you really notice the tallow scent in many finished soaps.) You may want to plug the crockpot in outside, or on a cold stovetop under the exhaust fan. Also, make sure to render/strain the tallow properly, to keep it free of unwanted cow bits.
@mdkmdk - I haven't done a tallow soap (I'm vegan), but I believe the process is pretty much the same. The only thing you need to account forhttp://badgerandblade.com/vb/member.php/63265-Mdkmdk is the fact that melting beef fat has a somewhat more pungent smell than vegetable oils (to say the least. Maybe it's just me, but after using vegetable based soaps for a while, you really notice the tallow scent in many finished soaps.) You may want to plug the crockpot in outside, or on a cold stovetop under the exhaust fan. Also, make sure to render/strain the tallow properly, to keep it free of unwanted cow bits.
Guys, this is a great experiment but keep in mind that selling are done by hobbyists and vendors when it comes to homemade products like this... Selling those would go against TOU.
- Thread starter
- #33
@luc - Thanks! This was intended as an informational post on how to make shaving soap, as I thought members might be interested in seeing how the process happened, and how easy it was. The disposition of this batch is as yet undetermined, but any samples that get shipped to B&B members will be shipped free of charge. If I decide to move forward with selling this (as opposed to just making it for myself / friends), any sales will be done strictly in accordance with the B&B Hobbyist/Vendor policy and only after setting up a thread in the appropriate subforum (once I hit the 45 day / 50 post mark).
Just as a FYI, you do not need 45 days and 50 posts if you want to take the Hobbyist or Vendor program... You can PM me if you need more details.
JBLA - (I thought I posted this earlier, but apparently it didn't go through.) Is there any functional difference using Coconut Acid instead of Coconut Oil? As in, does it alter the soap's performance?
- Thread starter
- #36
@woodNUFC - I can't tell, as I've never used a coconut acid soap before. I don't know if a) there are particular qualities inherent in coconut acid vs. coconut oil that make it preferable, b) whether it's an economic choice, as actual coconut acid is a byproduct of the coconut oil refining process (and often not as pure white (or anywhere close) as the soap I based this on, or c) there's an issue in translation and both terms are describing the same thing in this case, as coconut oil is largely made up of coconut fatty acids. Sorry for such an unhelpful answer.
That is helpful. I really don't know much about soap making, so I apologize if I asked a really dumb question.
The problem with using that much coconut oil is that saponification coconut oil is one of the most drying soap ingredients. To make a shave soap with that high a percentage of saponified coconut oil that doesn't seriously dry out the skin would require either significant superfatting or the addition of moisturizers such as Shea butter, etc.
- Thread starter
- #39
No, not a dumb question. I read the ingredients list 5-10 times before I realized that coconut acid might be different than coconut oil. It's a rabbit hole once you start exploring all the different types of base oils, and all the component acids that go into them, and what their different properties are.
Very nifty!
