I Made Shaving Powder

[TheGRman]

Tonight on a whim, I thought I would attempt making some shaving powder... you know, like they used way back when. Anyway, the process went fairly quick and the results where, well... shaving powder.

What I did was cut up three cakes of modern Williams and placed those pieces into my food processor. I pulverized those little pieces on high, until it was like talcum powder. This took about 8 to 10 minutes. Then I added to that in the food processor, 1/4 cup of Shower to Shower 'Sport' Body Powder for a better fragrance and to help keep the lather more stable and thicker when produced. I pulsed the body powder in with the powdered soap for about 3 minutes, making sure it was incorporated well with the soap powder. Lastly, I dumped it all into a ziplock freezer bag for safe keeping until I get the proper container to dispense it from.

This coming Wednesday night, I'll shave with this new powder and see how it goes. Instead of using Shower to Shower, I thought about using simple cornstarch. Since Shower to Shower has cornstarch in it (first listed ingredient) I just threw that in.

Keeping my fingers crossed.

 

[Toothpick]

mine too! seems so easy to make. Hope it works out, be sure to report back.

 

[TheGRman]

I shaved with my homemade shaving powder tonight. Amazingly, the powderized William's shave soap did pretty well, better than I've ever gotten it to lather from a mug. After my normal shave prep, I simply sprinkled a little of the shave powder on the bristles of my damp, pure badger brush, and face lathered. The lather I was able to generate, was much better than lathering directly from the mug, and I got a great, BBS shave in three passes. I did have to dip the tips of my shave brush in water, before applying new lather for each pass, but still, a very nice shave, and easy too... no having to 'load' the brush with shave soap for 30 seconds to a minute.

I put the homemade shaving powder in an empty Tone's spice shaker. Here's the picture:

 

[Toothpick]

such a simple process to generate great lather! i'm on board.

 

[mharris127]

This is very interesting and since a soap maker is also impressed (Michelle from Mystic Water Soaps has commented here) this could actually jump-start a long stagnant product (I haven't seen shaving soap powder made in decades until this thread). Shaving powder certainly isn't a bad idea as long as the person using it has a water-tight container to carry it in for traveling. I wonder if someone like one of the Sues (Honeybee or Mama Bear) could do this with a scented melt and pour soap grated up with some talcum powder to keep it from sticking back together. Certainly Michelle could do this with her tallow-based soaps as it was done years ago.

 

[Mike H]

Very interesting. Thanks

 

[Go West Young Man]

You got better lather because you used an order of magnitude more soap than loading with a brush would have given you.

 

[Phog Allen]

Very nice. And the Tony's container is brilliant. I am telling you guys, we are going to force feed these old school products back into society. Well, at least I hope so. Artisans turning out superb hand made shave soaps, the return of a functioning shave powder. Life is good for the wet shaver right now. And then we will start in on packaging. I see a brilliantly chromed metal shaker about 75mm(~3 inches) tall and 30mm(~1-1/4 inches) in diameter for the shave powders. Lavender scent included of course.

Cheers, Todd

 

[lowjax]

Very interesting. Great idea and well executed. Will have to keep this in mind.

 

[weizemanner]

I shaved with my homemade shaving powder tonight. Amazingly, the powderized William's shave soap did pretty well, better than I've ever gotten it to lather from a mug. After my normal shave prep, I simply sprinkled a little of the shave powder on the bristles of my damp, pure badger brush, and face lathered. The lather I was able to generate, was much better than lathering directly from the mug, and I got a great, BBS shave in three passes. I did have to dip the tips of my shave brush in water, before applying new lather for each pass, but still, a very nice shave, and easy too... no having to 'load' the brush with shave soap for 30 seconds to a minute.

I put the homemade shaving powder in an empty Tone's spice shaker. Here's the picture:

View attachment 298972

And it's great for travelling. Until TSA sees this picture... What's this white powder? Shaving cream...

 

[Sideshowguy]

I'm very interested in making shaving powder, how did cornstarch work as opposed to shower to shower. What is the proper mixture? I'm a barber student and I want to be able to use traditional soap, but it has to be single use like powder. I use a traditional straight razor and a traditional kamisori, and want to use traditional brush and soap. But I can't use the same soap on all my clients, powder would be a great solution.

Tonight on a whim, I thought I would attempt making some shaving powder... you know, like they used way back when. Anyway, the process went fairly quick and the results where, well... shaving powder.

What I did was cut up three cakes of modern Williams and placed those pieces into my food processor. I pulverized those little pieces on high, until it was like talcum powder. This took about 8 to 10 minutes. Then I added to that in the food processor, 1/4 cup of Shower to Shower 'Sport' Body Powder for a better fragrance and to help keep the lather more stable and thicker when produced. I pulsed the body powder in with the powdered soap for about 3 minutes, making sure it was incorporated well with the soap powder. Lastly, I dumped it all into a ziplock freezer bag for safe keeping until I get the proper container to dispense it from.

This coming Wednesday night, I'll shave with this new powder and see how it goes. Instead of using Shower to Shower, I thought about using simple cornstarch. Since Shower to Shower has cornstarch in it (first listed ingredient) I just threw that in.

Keeping my fingers crossed.

 

[paintflinger]

I'm very interested in making shaving powder, how did cornstarch work as opposed to shower to shower. What is the proper mixture? I'm a barber student and I want to be able to use traditional soap, but it has to be single use like powder. I use a traditional straight razor and a traditional kamisori, and want to use traditional brush and soap. But I can't use the same soap on all my clients, powder would be a great solution.

By all means, use powder, but you could use a soft soap like Cella or proraso and simply scoop out the soap. A lot of the barbers in Italy do this. Alternatively you could use creams.

 

[freebird0064]

I have some original Williams powder and have tried this. The origanal works great, my attempt to re made powdered soap. Eh, works but not the same.

 

[BSAGuy]

Great idea and execution. Very creative.

 

[sarimento1]

I'm very interested in making shaving powder, how did cornstarch work as opposed to shower to shower. What is the proper mixture? I'm a barber student and I want to be able to use traditional soap, but it has to be single use like powder. I use a traditional straight razor and a traditional kamisori, and want to use traditional brush and soap. But I can't use the same soap on all my clients, powder would be a great solution.

can you use the same brush on your clients?
or do you simply lather in a bowl and then apply by hand?

 

[vespergo]

I've never seen such a thing. Awesome.

 

[rhtoras]

Here in Greece barbers use a shaving powder which is being made for decades and the recent reformulation was only for the scent(frow french soap to olive oil soap) and the lather is even better.
It is called splendid and is pretty cheap,around 5 usd.
search for it on google..."Σπλεντιντ"!!!

 

[kingfisher]

What an interesting idea. Thanks for sharing the process with us.