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Someone Care to Comment on a New Soap's Ingredients?

Since I don't want to mention a specific soapmaker and have this thread get bumped to the forum's less-trafficked areas, I'll just say that there is someone in the Ukraine making soaps that I have never seen before, and that their Ingredients appear to be pretty odd. I'm just curious if anyone wants to take an educated stab at how some of these ingredients will translate in a shave soap. I realize that there is no tallow (not a deal-breaker for me) and lots of sodium (yikes?), but I'm talking about some of the more obscure ingredients.

water, castor oil, coconut oil, burdock oil, jojoba oil, glycerin, sodium stearate, propylene glycol, sorbitol, potato starch, beet sugar, sodium laureth sulfate, sodium laureth, salt, stearic acid, lauric acid, titanium dioxide, Germall Plus, fragrance.

Thanks for the input.
 
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I think it would lather ok, but hard to say since it looks like it only uses sodium hydroxide. Castor oil and coconut oil tend to make a thick lather, not sure about burdock and jojoba might hinder foaming, but I think this would be more for hydration. SLS is a foaming agent but that and lauric acid are detergents so a lot of people don't particularly like them. However, they are found in popular brands such as Proraso so it's not necessarily a bad thing unless you are against laurates.

If it's not too expensive I'd take a chance on it. It could be a decent soap.
 
water, castor oil, coconut oil, burdock oil, jojoba oil, glycerin, sodium stearate, propylene glycol, sorbitol, potato starch, beet sugar, sodium laureth sulfate, sodium laureth, salt, stearic acid, lauric acid, titanium dioxide, Germall Plus, fragrance.
Had to look up what Burdock Oil brings to the mix; apparently it's a skin conditioner and helps treat dandruff.
 
Had to look up what Burdock Oil brings to the mix; apparently it's a skin conditioner and helps treat dandruff.
Yeah, it's guess that I was most interested in the benefit of burdock oil, potato starch and beet sugar. That and the kind of odd order of ingredients.
 
Personally, I would avoid it. I don't use so-called soaps that have SLS or SLES in them. These detergent ingredients are unnecessary for a soap of any kind and they are sensitizing for many people.
 
I'm not seeing sodium, but not sodium hydroxide listed in the ingredients list. Im

Those are the salts from the saponification reaction. Sodium hydroxide lye creates sodium salts e.g. sodium stearate while potassium hydroxide lye will create potassium salts e.g. potassium stearate. I'm not sure where this is produced but the labelling laws determine what you actually see on the label.
 
Appears to be primarily (unsaponified) oil, with a modicum of soap (sodium stearate); I'd expect it to lather poorly. I'd avoid!

That was my initial take as well, but with all the laurates I'm thinking that it has a decent chance to produce a good lather. I'm thinking that this is a melt-and-pour with added oils.
 
Yeah, it's guess that I was most interested in the benefit of burdock oil, potato starch and beet sugar. That and the kind of odd order of ingredients.
Appears to be primarily (unsaponified) oil, with a modicum of soap (sodium stearate); I'd expect it to lather poorly. I'd avoid!
The thing is that if it’s produced in Ukraine the order of the ingredients listed definitely might not correspond to the most-to-least listing method that we’re used to.
 
The thing is that if it’s produced in Ukraine the order of the ingredients listed definitely might not correspond to the most-to-least listing method that we’re used to.
I was wondering about that, but the soap appears to be made for export, as the labels are are totally in English. Who knows...
For those curious, the maker in question is Elly's Wonder Shop.
 
That was my initial take as well, but with all the laurates I'm thinking that it has a decent chance to produce a good lather. I'm thinking that this is a melt-and-pour with added oils.
Yes, but looks out of balance; lot more oil, vs surfactants (sodium stearate + SLS).

The thing is that if it’s produced in Ukraine the order of the ingredients listed definitely might not correspond to the most-to-least listing method that we’re used to.
Per an engine: "Ukraine adopts the European Cosmetics Regulation."
 
That was my initial take as well, but with all the laurates I'm thinking that it has a decent chance to produce a good lather. I'm thinking that this is a melt-and-pour with added oils.

The thing is that if it’s produced in Ukraine the order of the ingredients listed definitely might not correspond to the most-to-least listing method that we’re used to.

I was thinking both of these thoughts as well. I'm not a fan of the use of titanium dioxide, so I'd probably steer clear myself, but I don't see anything out of the ordinary to not at least try it for those that don't care about TiO2.
 
In the past curiosity, for me, certainly killed the cat. I've tried a couple obscure ones and always wound up with soap that was at best suitable for washing my hands. So I'm done.


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I have used a large number of soaps and creams, so I can normally get a pretty good idea of the performance by analyzing the list of ingredients. However, in this case, I am stumped.

My guess is that this might be a cream or croap as many of the ingredients tend to be liquid with starch and sugar acting as thickeners. It does contain stearic acid and lauric acids, which are harder fats, but there are no strong alkalis to turn them into fatty acid esters/soap.

The formulation is so unconventional that I have no idea how it will perform.
 
First of all, the woman who made these soaps that are being sold in the US has not listed in the ingredients by their proper INCI names. She has listed "castor oil" and not "Ricinus communis (Castor) Seed Oil" which is the proper INCI name required here in the U.S. The same things goes for all the other oils in the list! Also, Castor Oil is an oil that creates lather but with large bubbles rather than the tiny, tight foam needed for shaving soap lather! She has listed "sodium laureth". Sodium Laureth what? Sodium Laureth Sulfate? Isethionate? some other group? This is also not listed correctly. Germall Plus? That's a company name for this preservative which has an INCI name of "INCI: Propylene Glycol (and) Diazolidinyl Urea (and) Iodopropynyl Butylcarbamate" So, this makes me wonder if all the ingredients are listed from the highest to the lowest percentage and if everything else under 1% is listed at the end of the list which is the correct way of doing things! The only "soap" listed in the formula is Sodium Stearate made with Stearic Acid and Sodium Hydroxide (and it would typically be higher in the list in a formulation like this!) and there is no Potassium Hydroxide listed to saponify any of the rest of the oils and is a common ingredient in a Shaving Soap. It has two surfactants, i.e. "sodium laureth sulfate" and "sodium laurate" (which is missing the last part of it) and sometimes those are found as ingredients in shaving creams and soaps. But there are so many things wrong with the ingredients list it makes me question the product in general.
 
I don't understand, and rarely pay attention to ingredients, but soaps with Argan oil or tallow always seem to work best for me.To each his own.
 
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