Shaving soaps--Who makes their own?

[americanarmsdealer]

And what do you use, and what techniques and ingredients have you found to work better or yield better results after some trial and error/experimentation? My wife is very interested in starting to make bath soap, and I figured why not shave soap as well?

 

[mretzloff]

You have two options:

1. You can "make" a melt-and-pour shaving soap, like Mama Bear's or QED (which is actually not making soap, more so mixing a base with fragrance and added vitamins and glycerin)

2. You can either make a cold proccess or hot process shaving soap. I will not give you a recipe, but I can give you a hint: stearic acid.

 

[kingfisher]

making shaving soap is not as easy as it sounds. Even people who very successfully make good hand soaps aren't necessarily able to make a good shaving soap.

As mretzloff said, you could purchase brambleberry unscented soaps, melt them down, add ingredients of your choice (for example, essential oils, fragrance oils, glycerin, etc), and that would be BY FAR the easiest way.

 

[Pricklycactus]

Definitely melt and pour is the easiest way to go as you can experiment with fragrance oils and it wont curdle the soap like it might with cold process. Plus you dont have to wait very long for it to be ready.

 

[amcardon]

Looks like there's a lot of good info/help here: Teach Soap Forums

You could also talk to Benjamin AKA FortyTwoBlades over on bladeforums or contact him through his Etsy page Wild Eden Workshop. He's a good guy to talk to and uses his soaps for shaving; I just ordered 3 bars from him. His stock on his page is low as he's making a whole new line of products. He's also the only place I know of you can get fatwood soap! How cool is that?

 

[The Mind]

And what do you use, and what techniques and ingredients have you found to work better or yield better results after some trial and error/experimentation? My wife is very interested in starting to make bath soap, and I figured why not shave soap as well?

Don't risk making your own from scratch unless you have access to ph testing gear. Sodium and Potassium hydroxide are nasty chemicals, used amongst other things for cleaning drains and ovens, and its hard to make sure the soap is fully free from them.

Easiest way is to use a basic unscented shave soap (I use boots own brand purchased in the UK (I'm an expat living in Egypt), melt it in a double burner with some olive oil and distilled water and stir until it melts then thickens. I then add essential oils, in my case lime, cedarwood, bergamont, thyme jasmine and ginger to make a softish soap for when my face is feeling a bit to oily for creams.

By the way I'm a new member and a first time poster although I have followed the forums, and found them very useful for a long time.

 

[BlackBard]

Don't risk making your own from scratch unless you have access to ph testing gear. Sodium and Potassium hydroxide are nasty chemicals, used amongst other things for cleaning drains and ovens, and its hard to make sure the soap is fully free from them.

Easiest way is to use a basic unscented shave soap (I use boots own brand purchased in the UK (I'm an expat living in Egypt), melt it in a double burner with some olive oil and distilled water and stir until it melts then thickens. I then add essential oils, in my case lime, cedarwood, bergamont, thyme jasmine and ginger to make a softish soap for when my face is feeling a bit to oily for creams.

By the way I'm a new member and a first time poster although I have followed the forums, and found them very useful for a long time.

Welcome aboard B&B. I might be interested in "making" my own shaving soap, but there are so many excellent soaps available, that are probably much better than anything I could make up, myself. So, while I am working to perfect my own soap, probably at considerable time and expense, I would have to forgo those great soaps. Seems to me like this is one of those times when I should leave it to the experts.

 

[americanarmsdealer]

Welcome to B&B. Love the user name! Thanks for the info.

 

[SliceOfLife]

And what do you use, and what techniques and ingredients have you found to work better or yield better results after some trial and error/experimentation? My wife is very interested in starting to make bath soap, and I figured why not shave soap as well?

I use Tallow (Palm oil is virtually interchangeable here, and is in fact slightly superior), Stearic acid (Palmitic is interchangeable here), castor oil(Coconut can be used, but is less versatile), and then some "conditioning" fats (not necessary). I used olive oil a few times, but cost aside, I prefer cocoa butter.

I find an ~ 65/35 (fat's saponified, due to potency, it is closer to a 50/50 split of Bases by weight) split of KOH/NaOH works well for the texture of product I like, though it has to be slightly adjusted depending on the specific formula of fats you use.


Temperature is probably the most annoying aspect of shave soap making. Stearic/Palmitic acids are VERY reactive and are solid ALMOST to the boiling point of water, and if your temperature isn't exactly right the added heat from the saponification (exothermic) will create a soap volcano. So you have a very small range (3-5 degrees F) where you can combine the fats and bases and not result in a lumpy soap that doesn't lather right (the good lathering fats come out of solution and are unavailable for saponification, making the soap junk) or an explosion of soap all over your work area.

 

[Sydney Guy]

Looks like there's a lot of good info/help here: Teach Soap Forums

I get a "403 Forbidden - You don't have permission to access / on this server." message from that site.