Shaving Soaps vs High Quality Face or Body Soaps?

[Spy Car]

Ooh! Ooh! Just because two things look the same, doesn't mean they are. It'd be like mixing up powdered sugar and flour in your baking. Or any number of white powders that can be similar looking. Corn starch vs powdered sugar...

Except, I imagine, the ingredient list for a "glycerine" shave soap would be virtually indistinguishable from a glycerine body soap, yes? It isn't like one soap is make of "flour" and another made of powdered sugar. Yet, we are told, they have different characteristics, and I want to know "why"?

Bill

 

[scaevola]

I wouldn't say they're 'virtually' indistinguishable because there isn't just one set of ingredients that you use to make soap. You have the base (like lye) and the fat/oil of some form to saponify it, but past that there's different paths to take. Which was well made known on the straight razor forum link I gave as there were soap makers (including Mama Bear) weighing in.

Glycerin soap my parents use--
http://www.clearlynaturalsoaps.com/cgi-bin/category.cgi?category=cningredients

A ton of different shaving cream and soap ingredient labels from various times in history--
http://www.theshaveden.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4780

Random Etsy person's soap--
http://www.etsy.com/listing/40080133/be-mine-glycerin-heart-soaps-i-heart-you

 

[mretzloff]

A shaving soap and a bath soap are made differently. There are different ingredients and different ways to use these ingredients. You cannot take a bath soap recipe and tweek it into a shaving soap recipe. You literally have to start from square one.

A "glycerin" soap is called "melt-and-pour"; "glycerin soap" is a misnomer. Take a look at Bramble Berry if you want a shaving soap melt-and-pour base. You can then make your own "soap".

 

[Spy Car]

You may not be satisfied with the answers you've received so far, so try this experiment:

1. shave with a bar of your wife's bath soap
2. shave with a high end shave soap
3. decide if the former can be substituted for the latter

We promise to not make fun of you when you report back.

In the interest of "science" I broke out a bar of French "Senteurs Provençals" body soap (72% Olive Oil) to give it a test.

Using my stiffest boar brush I loaded the brush and started building a lather in a bowl. To my surprise a lather started building rather quickly. I kept working it, but began to become disconcerted with the amount of air. Yes, I was beginning to build "foam" rather than "lather." Still it did seem to have some slickness, so I applied the brush to my face to do the last face lathering.

Absolute rubbish

The foam broke. There was noting remotely redeeming in this (other than to validate your warnings) so I wiped my face, dumped the foam down the sink, and restarted with a proper shave cream.

I'm still desirous to have a "layman's" understanding of what a soap maker does to turn fats into shave soaps vs body soaps. But with this body soap, at least, there was no way I was going to put blade to face.

Bill

 

[RolandH]

I recently got into soap making when a friend of mine took a class and told me about it. I am a chemist and had everything in the lab I needed and so I tried. It worked out really well, and then I got ambitious and developed a shaving soap. This lead me to this forum. Keep in mind, I am a newbie to soap making, so forgive me if there is something not 100% correct.

Fat is a compound (ester) of one glycerin molecule with three molecules of fatty acid. Making soap simply means breaking that bond with a strong base and producing glycerin and salts of fatty acid (the actual soap). The glycerin is often removed in commercial soap. Homemade soap is made with a different process and the glycerin stays in the soap (cold process). The base is either sodium hydroxide (NaOH) or potassium hydroxide (KOH). The simple difference: potassium soap is liquid, sodium soap is solid. Once foamed up, they behave the same.

The characteristics of a soap is determined by the fatty acids it is made of. Olive oilf is 70 % oleic acid, a large molecule (18 carbon atoms). This gives a very mild soap which does not lather well. Laundry soap would be made of pure coconut oil which contains 70% short fatty acids (lauric - 12 C atoms, myristic - 14 C atoms). This lathers very fast, but not a stable lather. This would be much too aggressive for use on skin. Stable lather is produced by soaps high in palmitic, stearic, and ricinoleic acids.

A good olive oil soap recipe is:
80 % olive oil
15 % coconut oil
5 % castor oil
This gives a very mild soap, feels almost like pure olive oil soap. Because of the high amount of castor oil this soap has a very nice lather.

Shaving soap must have a stable lather and provide good lubrication. Slipperiness is achived by (i) adding clay, (ii) adding protein to the lye (breaks down in the lye, either silk or milk), (iii) a high amount of castor oil, (iv) adding glycerin (not necessary in cold process soap). Stable lather means high amounts of palmitic and stearic acid (palm oil and cocoa butter). If a shaving cream is to be made, the amount of potassium hydroxide is increased.

Here is a recipe for shaving soap
2 tsp clay
1 tsp milk powder
30 g coconut oil
20 g palm oil
10 g cocoa butter
20 g castor oil
20 g olive oil

There will be more additives like pigments and fragrances, in commercial soaps also possibly chelating agents, emulsifiers, preservatives, etc. The amount of base will determined how mild the soap will be. The amount of water will control the hardness (more in case of shaving creams).

 

[cymric]

I'm still desirous to have a "layman's" understanding of what a soap maker does to turn fats into shave soaps vs body soaps. But with this body soap, at least, there was no way I was going to put blade to face.

He ‘just’ choses different oils and fats; and may, if he feels like it and/or is after a specific kind of soap, play with the lyes which do the saponification.

I'm afraid the layman's explanation would still involve a good bit of typing on my behalf as it would need to cover quite a lot of physics and chemistry. The very short story is that shaving soap is not meant to be a cleansing soap as opposed to body soap. Although both products use quite similar ingredients, and are called soap, with shaving soap those ingredients are used to create a stable foam; the cleansing is a forgotten extra. With body soap it's more or less the other way around. Since foam is much harder to get right than cleaning, making a good shaving soap is actually a tricky business.

A slightly more involved summary goes as follows: shaving soaps rely heavily on fats with long carbon chains (16 or 18 carbon atoms), whereas for a body soap the length of the chains can be much shorter (10 to 12 carbon atoms). The larger chain size allows the molecules to stick together with greater force, thus allowing smaller air bubbles to be captured. If you were to use even longer chains you would find that getting the soap to dissolve in the first place would become a problem; in addition there aren't many natural sources of such chains to be found. (I know shea butter contains about 1% of chains of 20 carbon atoms.) On the other side, shortening the carbon chains even more would at some point lead to such small forces between the chains that the structure you need for bubbles, even large ones, would simply not form at all. You may find it interesting to note that the acid which gives common vinegar its characteristic taste and smell is actually a ‘fat’ with a very short carbon chain (2 carbon atoms)—it goes without saying that noone in their right mind would use vinegar for shaving, let alone blowing bubbles.

To complicate matters even more there are oils and fats which have the correct amount of carbon atoms, but are arranged in a different sequence. Olive oil is such a product. The reason it gets such a good rep for healthy cooking is exactly the reason why any soap using mainly olive oil as its base will be a terrible latherer. (However, there's nothing wrong with its cleansing properties.) And then there's all sorts of stuff dealing with the various lyes, water hardness, ease of processing (the soap must be milled, packaged, transported, ...), latherability, price, and a few others. They all amount to one thing: making your own shaving soap is not easy, and those that have a good recipe will not be inclined to share it, with good reason.

 

[Spy Car]

He ‘just’ choses different oils and fats; and may, if he feels like it and/or is after a specific kind of soap, play with the lyes which do the saponification.

I'm afraid the layman's explanation would still involve a good bit of typing on my behalf as it would need to cover quite a lot of physics and chemistry. The very short story is that shaving soap is not meant to be a cleansing soap as opposed to body soap. Although both products use quite similar ingredients, and are called soap, with shaving soap those ingredients are used to create a stable foam; the cleansing is a forgotten extra. With body soap it's more or less the other way around. Since foam is much harder to get right than cleaning, making a good shaving soap is actually a tricky business.

A slightly more involved summary goes as follows: shaving soaps rely heavily on fats with long carbon chains (16 or 18 carbon atoms), whereas for a body soap the length of the chains can be much shorter (10 to 12 carbon atoms). The larger chain size allows the molecules to stick together with greater force, thus allowing smaller air bubbles to be captured. If you were to use even longer chains you would find that getting the soap to dissolve in the first place would become a problem; in addition there aren't many natural sources of such chains to be found. (I know shea butter contains about 1% of chains of 20 carbon atoms.) On the other side, shortening the carbon chains even more would at some point lead to such small forces between the chains that the structure you need for bubbles, even large ones, would simply not form at all. You may find it interesting to note that the acid which gives common vinegar its characteristic taste and smell is actually a ‘fat’ with a very short carbon chain (2 carbon atoms)—it goes without saying that noone in their right mind would use vinegar for shaving, let alone blowing bubbles.

To complicate matters even more there are oils and fats which have the correct amount of carbon atoms, but are arranged in a different sequence. Olive oil is such a product. The reason it gets such a good rep for healthy cooking is exactly the reason why any soap using mainly olive oil as its base will be a terrible latherer. (However, there's nothing wrong with its cleansing properties.) And then there's all sorts of stuff dealing with the various lyes, water hardness, ease of processing (the soap must be milled, packaged, transported, ...), latherability, price, and a few others. They all amount to one thing: making your own shaving soap is not easy, and those that have a good recipe will not be inclined to share it, with good reason.

This post was tremendously illuminating, thank you!

Looking at the components of say tallow, I can see how it contains a fair portion of parts that put it in the right target range in terms of carbon chain length. You've provided exactly the layman's type explanation I was hoping to find. I thank you for taking the time!

Having even a modicum of understanding of the art and science of soap making can only make the journey of trying different makers soaps all the more enjoyable.

Cheers,

Bill

 

[Spy Car]

I recently got into soap making when a friend of mine took a class and told me about it. I am a chemist and had everything in the lab I needed and so I tried. It worked out really well, and then I got ambitious and developed a shaving soap. This lead me to this forum. Keep in mind, I am a newbie to soap making, so forgive me if there is something not 100% correct.

Fat is a compound (ester) of one glycerin molecule with three molecules of fatty acid. Making soap simply means breaking that bond with a strong base and producing glycerin and salts of fatty acid (the actual soap). The glycerin is often removed in commercial soap. Homemade soap is made with a different process and the glycerin stays in the soap (cold process). The base is either sodium hydroxide (NaOH) or potassium hydroxide (KOH). The simple difference: potassium soap is liquid, sodium soap is solid. Once foamed up, they behave the same.

The characteristics of a soap is determined by the fatty acids it is made of. Olive oilf is 70 % oleic acid, a large molecule (18 carbon atoms). This gives a very mild soap which does not lather well. Laundry soap would be made of pure coconut oil which contains 70% short fatty acids (lauric - 12 C atoms, myristic - 14 C atoms). This lathers very fast, but not a stable lather. This would be much too aggressive for use on skin. Stable lather is produced by soaps high in palmitic, stearic, and ricinoleic acids.

A good olive oil soap recipe is:
80 % olive oil
15 % coconut oil
5 % castor oil
This gives a very mild soap, feels almost like pure olive oil soap. Because of the high amount of castor oil this soap has a very nice lather.

Shaving soap must have a stable lather and provide good lubrication. Slipperiness is achived by (i) adding clay, (ii) adding protein to the lye (breaks down in the lye, either silk or milk), (iii) a high amount of castor oil, (iv) adding glycerin (not necessary in cold process soap). Stable lather means high amounts of palmitic and stearic acid (palm oil and cocoa butter). If a shaving cream is to be made, the amount of potassium hydroxide is increased.

Here is a recipe for shaving soap
2 tsp clay
1 tsp milk powder
30 g coconut oil
20 g palm oil
10 g cocoa butter
20 g castor oil
20 g olive oil

There will be more additives like pigments and fragrances, in commercial soaps also possibly chelating agents, emulsifiers, preservatives, etc. The amount of base will determined how mild the soap will be. The amount of water will control the hardness (more in case of shaving creams).

I feel a little silly (having just joined the forum myself) to say "Welcome to the Forum", but I'm grateful you jumped in with your first post.

Did you get into making soap because you wet-shave, or are you getting into wet-shaving through the interest in soap?

Two days ago I would not have imagined I might want to make soap myself, now I'm a little intrigued. I'd like to hear more about your soap making adventure, should you care to share.

Very interesting.

Bill

 

[Preacher]

I only shave my neck, and trim above my beard a bit, I have a cake of Williams, a cake of Surrey, and a small brass bowl filled with Lever 2000 that I grated, melted, and formed into a cake. I have been using the Lever for quite a while, no problems whatsoever. I originally tried it when Gillette quit making brushless which I used for years. The other day I decided to try the Williams, whipped up a nice lather, although it was not as "dense" (don't know if that is the right word or not) as the Lever, applied it, shaved with my Fatboy and a day old blade, and got the worse case of burn I have had in a long time. (same setting as always on the razor) I thought my neck was going to catch fire. From now on, Lever is it, I only trim every 2 days, cost prohibitive to buy the "really good stuff."

Don't know about all the chemistry involved, I just know what works for me.

 

[RolandH]

Did you get into making soap because you wet-shave, or are you getting into wet-shaving through the interest in soap?

Two days ago I would not have imagined I might want to make soap myself, now I'm a little intrigued. I'd like to hear more about your soap making adventure, should you care to share.

Very interesting.

Bill

Hi Bill,

I have always shaved wet, my skin doesn't take to dry shaving. I started using shaving soap because of the soap making. Immediately the quality of the shave was so much better than with the gel I used before.

Soap making is very easy, just check out Youtube. There are many videos that show how to do it. There is also tons of information on the internet. That's how I got to the two recipes I posted earlier.

Roland

 

[Spy Car]

I only shave my neck, and trim above my beard a bit, I have a cake of Williams, a cake of Surrey, and a small brass bowl filled with Lever 2000 that I grated, melted, and formed into a cake. I have been using the Lever for quite a while, no problems whatsoever. I originally tried it when Gillette quit making brushless which I used for years. The other day I decided to try the Williams, whipped up a nice lather, although it was not as "dense" (don't know if that is the right word or not) as the Lever, applied it, shaved with my Fatboy and a day old blade, and got the worse case of burn I have had in a long time. (same setting as always on the razor) I thought my neck was going to catch fire. From now on, Lever is it, I only trim every 2 days, cost prohibitive to buy the "really good stuff."

Don't know about all the chemistry involved, I just know what works for me.

Is Lever 2000 even "soap"? I thought it was "detergent."

Bill

 

[Spy Car]

Hi Bill,

I have always shaved wet, my skin doesn't take to dry shaving. I started using shaving soap because of the soap making. Immediately the quality of the shave was so much better than with the gel I used before.

Soap making is very easy, just check out Youtube. There are many videos that show how to do it. There is also tons of information on the internet. That's how I got to the two recipes I posted earlier.

Roland

Have you tried any making any tallow based soaps? These intrigue me.

Bill

 

[Preacher]

Bill, I do not know, as I said, it works for me. Never heard it called detergent before, but even if it is, still works. lol

 

[ouch]

I wish we had 100 soapmakers on this forum.

Spoiler

Old timers will know the punchline to this joke.

 

[Go West Young Man]

I only shave my neck, and trim above my beard a bit, I have a cake of Williams, a cake of Surrey, and a small brass bowl filled with Lever 2000 that I grated, melted, and formed into a cake. I have been using the Lever for quite a while, no problems whatsoever. I originally tried it when Gillette quit making brushless which I used for years. The other day I decided to try the Williams, whipped up a nice lather, although it was not as "dense" (don't know if that is the right word or not) as the Lever, applied it, shaved with my Fatboy and a day old blade, and got the worse case of burn I have had in a long time. (same setting as always on the razor) I thought my neck was going to catch fire. From now on, Lever is it, I only trim every 2 days, cost prohibitive to buy the "really good stuff."

Don't know about all the chemistry involved, I just know what works for me.

Obviously if what you're doing works for you, our advice here isn't worth much - results are what matter the most, not how you get there.

That said, you're comparing a crappy product to another crappy product. Heck, you can shave dry with a Bic disposable if you want to, and some guys do. Still, you'd likely be surprised how pleasant your shave can become if you even upgrade to a tube of Bigelow or a puck of Cade, both available at most any mall, both costing exactly $10.

 

[mharris127]

Obviously if what you're doing works for you, our advice here isn't worth much - results are what matter the most, not how you get there.

That said, you're comparing a crappy product to another crappy product. Heck, you can shave dry with a Bic disposable if you want to, and some guys do. Still, you'd likely be surprised how pleasant your shave can become if you even upgrade to a tube of Bigelow or a puck of Cade, both available at most any mall, both costing exactly $10.

Heck, he could order two sticks of Palmolive shaving soap and apply it directly to the face (rubbing with his fingers after application to get a lather) for about $10 a year! I personally prefer lathering my shaving soap with a brush, but he could theoretically do it and make it work. He could also buy a brush for $5 to $10 and a puck of VDH for $2 that should last a month or so (or use the Palmolive at the same cost as finger lathering) and have a better experience. A good shaving experience doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg.