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Homemade Shaving Soap - An Illustrated Guide to a Test Batch - LONG POST

Still playing with the lather. Saw some people taking duration shots, so I thought I'd give it a shot.

Step 1. Make absurdly thick, wet and sloppy lather. (Soak brush, shake it out, load brush with soap until bristles begin to stick then load a little longer, put a few drops of hot water in bowl, begin swirling brush, keep swirling and adding water until desired consistency is reached. (This assumes that you want absurdly thick lather and have an essentially unlimited supply of shaving soap at your disposal (which you will once you buy a crockpot). You can load less soap if you need a less thick lather.)

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Step 2. Wait 20 minutes, to see how it holds up.

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It was a little wet, so there was a little dripping, but there was still a healthy cloud of lather at the end of the brush 20 minutes later.

Just for comparison, here's what the empty brush looks like:

View attachment 316693

(It's The Body Shop's synthetic shaving brush. Not bad if you want a reasonably stiff brush for about $12.)

Hope you all are having a fun weekend!
 
Nice longevity, there. I imagine some of the loss of body is due to evaporation in the dry winter air, too. Unless you're southern hemisphere, I suppose.
 
Nice longevity, there. I imagine some of the loss of body is due to evaporation in the dry winter air, too. Unless you're southern hemisphere, I suppose.

I'm in good old Los Angeles, so I can't really blame the weather for anything.

In other news, I did test batch 2 today. Used only about 8 oz. of base oils, so I'm not wasting much if this batch doesn't turn out successfully.

View attachment 319274

5% superfatting this time, with 3 tbsp of glycerin per lb of fats, should leave plenty of slickness.

Let the soap cook for 2 hours this time, stirring intermittently. Noticed a distinct change in texture at about 1:45.

Did a pH test and it looks like it's right about 10, which is slightly alkaline, but within the 9.5-10.5 range that's apparently about standard for homemade / home saponified soap. (pH being a logarithmic measurement, it's a lot less harsh than the last batch at 11.)

Then I put it in the new homemade soap mold prototype (a length of 2" plastic tubing from home depot, cut in half (poorly) lengthwise with a Dremel tool, secured with end caps and toe-clip straps from the bike co-op). It'll be interesting to see if this soap mold design works for sample pucks / shaving sticks going forward, or if I have to use something else.

View attachment 319275

Doing a <1lb batch in a large crockpot led to a little scorching, so those of you attempting recipe creation at home may want to have a small crockpot for testing and a larger one for production purposes.

Today's prototype recipe consisted of:

118g stearic acid
109g coconut oil
114g water
49g lye
1.5 tbsp glycerin

I'll update on the shave and lather quality once it's had a chance to cool and harden.

NOTE: Line your molds with wax paper if they aren't made of rubber or silicone. I forgot and the demolding process this morning was ugly. Good thing this batch is for functional testing purposes only, and not aesthetics.

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I just started making soap, one batch in. I realized how much I did wrong as I was reading your post!

A few questions though; can you give more details on what you plug into soapcalc.net? Or perhaps the generated recipe? I'm not sure I'm entering it correctly, some of the numbers look really wild (like Hardness and Iodine... "creamy" looks about right!) . I only have NaOH (it took me about 2 weeks to find that) so I would probably stick to that. Is there a large enough difference between that and KOH to really matter?
 
I only have NaOH (it took me about 2 weeks to find that) so I would probably stick to that. Is there a large enough difference between that and KOH to really matter?

Not a soapmaker (yet) so take this with a grain of NaCl, but yes, it does matter. Good shaving soaps seem to be primarily potassium-saponified (if that's a word). Soaps made solely with NaOH don't seem to work well for shaving; they work well for cleaning.

Hope this helps...
 
I just started making soap, one batch in. I realized how much I did wrong as I was reading your post!

A few questions though; can you give more details on what you plug into soapcalc.net? Or perhaps the generated recipe? I'm not sure I'm entering it correctly, some of the numbers look really wild (like Hardness and Iodine... "creamy" looks about right!) . I only have NaOH (it took me about 2 weeks to find that) so I would probably stick to that. Is there a large enough difference between that and KOH to really matter?

OK, here's the soapcalc generated recipe for the last small test batch using 8 oz. of base oils. The only thing I added to this recipe was vegetable glycerin. (1.5 tbsp, since I'm thinking the final recipe will have 3 tbsp glycerin per lb of base oils.)


SoapCalc ©Recipe Name:Print Recipe

Total oil weight8
Water as percent of oil weight50.168 %
Super Fat/Discount5 %
Lye Concentration30 %
Water : Lye Ratio2.333:1
Sat : Unsat Ratio95 : 5
Iodine6
INS226
Fragrance Ratio0
Fragrance Weight0 Oz

IngredientPoundsOuncesGrams
Water0.2514.013113.778
Lye - KOH0.1081.7248.762

#&#8730;Oil/Fat%PoundsOuncesGrams
1Stearic Acid520.264.16117.934
2Coconut Oil, 76 deg480.243.84108.862
Totals1000.58226.796

Soap Bar QualitySuggested RangeYour Recipe
Hardness29 - 5489
Cleansing12 - 2232
Conditioning44 - 695
Bubbly14 - 4632
Creamy16 - 4857
Iodine41 - 706
INS136 - 165226
Lauric23
Myristic9
Palmitic4
Stearic53
Ricinoleic0
Oleic4
Linoleic1
Linolenic0


Don't worry about the numbers being way off in terms of iodine, INS, etc.

In terms of KOH vs. NaOH, there is a substantial difference, as the KOH apparently reacts better with the stearic salts in the base oils and makes a better shaving soap. A KOH saponified soap will generally be much softer than an NaOH saponified soap. This isn't much of an issue unless you really prefer harder soaps, in which case using NaOH instead of KOH (or using a large fraction of KOH), curing for a longer period, milling, etc., can all be used to create a harder bar.

http://www.essentialdepot.com/ sells KOH fairly cheaply, so if you're getting into making shaving soap, I'd order a few pounds of that, and use the NaOH for bath bars, but YMMV.

Good luck!
 
In terms of KOH vs. NaOH, there is a substantial difference, as the KOH apparently reacts better with the stearic salts in the base oils and makes a better shaving soap. A KOH saponified soap will generally be much softer than an NaOH saponified soap. This isn't much of an issue unless you really prefer harder soaps, in which case using NaOH instead of KOH (or using a large fraction of KOH), curing for a longer period, milling, etc., can all be used to create a harder bar.

http://www.essentialdepot.com/ sells KOH fairly cheaply, so if you're getting into making shaving soap, I'd order a few pounds of that, and use the NaOH for bath bars, but YMMV.

Hm, shipping to Canada is quite expensive. I'll have to try some more local sites.

Thanks for that recipe, I will be watching this thread carefully!
 
Hm, shipping to Canada is quite expensive. I'll have to try some more local sites.

Thanks for that recipe, I will be watching this thread carefully!

Try looking on ebay for options with free shipping. (Even in the U.S., essentialdepot.com offered a cheaper free shipping deal on ebay than they do on their own site when I ordered, which was odd.)
 
Just wanted to say thank you for all the information you have posted. Looks like I have another project to undertake and am going to have to try this.
 
I would be very interested in giving your soap a try before deciding if I would like to make some for myself. I love MdC but yeah it is crazy expensive for what it really is at the end of the day and I already have 5 gallons of traditionally hand pressed organic virgin coconut oil. I guess I would need a accurate scale and the crockpot but it sounds like lots of fun and is educational as well.
 
Just wanted to say thank you for all the information you have posted. Looks like I have another project to undertake and am going to have to try this.

You're very welcome. Give it a shot, you'll be amazed at how nice it is to shave with something you've made yourself. (Plus, as you learn, you can refine the recipe to better meet your own preferences.)
 
I wanted to add my thanks to JBLA for posting this information!

if you don't mind I have a couple of questions:
1) Now that you have made this soap could you give a verdict on the comparison of this soap with Martin de Candre?
2) Not having a crockpot would a double boiler (au bain marie) be sufficient for this soap making task?
3) I love MdC and the StropShoppe special edition soaps. The StropShoppe soap has all sorts of butters in it and I like/love that, could your MdC approximation soap (you need a name for your soap<g>) be adjusted to include those butters. What I'm looking for is a perfect marriage of MdC and StropShoppe soaps, I hope that will result in shaving soap nirvana.
4) Ever thought about creating an aftershave balm, preferably overloaded with the oils and butters goodness? Or know of some recipe/thread that delivers this kind of balm?

Gee, lots of questions. Hope I don't impose to much!

Regards,
Steven
 
I wanted to add my thanks to JBLA for posting this information!

if you don't mind I have a couple of questions:
1) Now that you have made this soap could you give a verdict on the comparison of this soap with Martin de Candre?
2) Not having a crockpot would a double boiler (au bain marie) be sufficient for this soap making task?
3) I love MdC and the StropShoppe special edition soaps. The StropShoppe soap has all sorts of butters in it and I like/love that, could your MdC approximation soap (you need a name for your soap<g>) be adjusted to include those butters. What I'm looking for is a perfect marriage of MdC and StropShoppe soaps, I hope that will result in shaving soap nirvana.
4) Ever thought about creating an aftershave balm, preferably overloaded with the oils and butters goodness? Or know of some recipe/thread that delivers this kind of balm?

Gee, lots of questions. Hope I don't impose to much!

Regards,
Steven

You're welcome Steven.

To answer your questions:

1. I'm not sure. I based the recipe off of the M de C ingredients list I pulled off of a google image search. I don't currently own the soap. I'm going to give a few samples of this current recipe to some friends for testing, and if it meets with their approval, I'll do another batch with the same recipe for some of the B&B folks that have expressed interest, and maybe some of them will be able to compare it. (Obviously, it doesn't have the same provenance or history, and hasn't cured in wooden boxes for four months, but it's still a pretty good shaving soap.) This project is just to get a solid baseline shaving soap, that I can then improve on going forward. I'm not sure if I'll call this soap "baseline" or "homage", given that it's based on another soap.

2. A double boiler / bain marie should be fine. Depending on its size and the objections of your significant other, it might be easier just to buy a crockpot at a thrift shop / discount store to use specifically for soap making.

3. You can adjust this recipe however you want. I'm putting this out for everyone to play with. You can go to soapcalc.net to figure out the saponification values for additional lye for turning shea butter or cocoa butter or kokum butter or whatever into soap. Alternately, you could add them later in the process when you add glycerin for additional superfatting / slickness.

4. I have THOUGHT about creating an aftershave balm, but I haven't gotten to it yet. Once I get this recipe down, my next project is going to be coming up with a fougere scent based off of Houbigant's Fougere Royale (between seeing the enthusiasm for fougere here, and having tracked down a sample of the vintage stuff (which is AMAZING), I've gotten really into it). I may not be quite as open about the recipe for that, but we'll see. The one downside of getting creative with soap scents is that using decent essential oils gets expensive FAST. If you've ever wondered why there are so many menthol shaving soaps, but finding a decent sandalwood soap is so tricky, it might have something to do with the fact that eucalyptus oil runs $4/oz, while sandalwood runs $143/oz, and a given batch of soap can use a couple of ounces worth of scent. (This also explains why synthetic scents / fragrance oils are popular.) Once I get that sorted out though, a decent aftershave sounds like a plan. Maybe something with rosewater and witch hazel and aloe, but that's still a ways off.

I highly recommend making a batch yourself, especially if you have a dream soap in mind.
 
Thanks for the answers!

I'll keep an eye out on this recipe and when I'm ready to make some soap I will use this recipe. Right now I've got so many soaps/creams that I good for a long while.

So I'll concentrate on making an ASB. Seeing how expensive these are and how quickly I go through my favorites and having to ship my favorites from abroad (shipping costs) I want to take control and do the ASB myself. Way easier than soap making also :)

My (make believe) recipe for now: Shea butter, Glycerine, Aloe butter, Mango butter, Castor oil, Coconut oil, Cacao butter, Lanolin/wool-fat
I might add more butters :)
 
Try looking on ebay for options with free shipping. (Even in the U.S., essentialdepot.com offered a cheaper free shipping deal on ebay than they do on their own site when I ordered, which was odd.)

Haha I guess that's not the best source for me...

US Site:
View attachment 321000


Canada site:
View attachment 321001

Same vendor, same product. I think they really want to discourage shipping to Canada. :ohmy:

5lb is way too much for me of course.
 
. A double boiler / bain marie should be fine. Depending on its size and the objections of your significant other, it might be easier just to buy a crockpot at a thrift shop / discount store to use specifically for soap making.

In my experience double-boilers can introduce too much extra moisture into the soap as steam inevitably moves into the top chamber. They can also be quite a lot hotter than a crock-pot on a low setting (mine doesn't get much above 80 degrees Celsius and I much prefer the low-and-slow approach). Crock-pots are cheap with my first one costing only about $20 new on sale. Made in China for sure but it has been reliable for years.

The one downside of getting creative with soap scents is that using decent essential oils gets expensive FAST. If you've ever wondered why there are so many menthol shaving soaps, but finding a decent sandalwood soap is so tricky, it might have something to do with the fact that eucalyptus oil runs $4/oz, while sandalwood runs $143/oz, and a given batch of soap can use a couple of ounces worth of scent. (This also explains why synthetic scents / fragrance oils are popular.) Once I get that sorted out though, a decent aftershave sounds like a plan. Maybe something with rosewater and witch hazel and aloe, but that's still a ways off.

It doesn't need to be too expensive (though quality essential oils still cost). It's down to how you add them to the batch. I find adding essential oils in the method suggested by most soap making books and websites to be hugely wasteful.
If you add essential oils after trace in a cold-process soap, a lot gets saponified into soap during the cure. If you add them to hot-process soap after saponification is complete but when the soap mass is still hot and soft, a fair proportion of the oils will evaporate off as they are volatile.

The way to make essential oils cost effective is to allow the soap to cool and cure, mill the soap then add the scent and compress. It's what commercial soap makers have been doing for well over 100 years.

Here's my D.I.Y method: tip the hot soap mass onto baking paper and leave it to cure for a week or two (don't let anyone tell you that a hot-process soap doesn't need curing. Yes you can use it immediately if you want to but a short cure definitely improves it).
If you have made a hard soap, break up the block and grate it into a large bowl or another sheet of paper. If your soap is an Italian-style "croap" (which is what I tend to make), push the mass through a potato ricer onto baking paper.
Load a small perfume atomizer with essential oil and evenly spray the shavings (or soap "worms" if you have used a ricer). Toss the shavings to spread the oil, then mold into what ever shape you are using. If you have made a harder soap and are using the PVC pipe method, cap one end, hold the pipe vertically, fill with shavings, compress with a tamper of some kind, then repeat until the tube is full. Un-mold, slice into bars and leave to cure for a bit longer.

I've seen D.I.Y soap making books suggest adding 3% - 5% essential oil, but I've added things like expensive sandalwood oil or rose otto at about 1% (or less) using the above method and the results have been excellent. If you find the scent is too mild, grate the bars, add more essential oil and re-compress (less work than you may think)
 
This is a great thread - thanks for the instructions. This is definitely one to try in the future!

And your hand soap looks pretty neat as well Songwind - makes it look easy enough to try on an even smaller scale.
 
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