Testing Shaving Soaps via baths

[Doc Dan]

I am aware many of you know this already. However, for me it was a new thing. I have started using some of my lesser performing shaving soaps for bath soap. What I found was that some of the highly touted soaps leave my skin very dry. I then thought about the fact I was putting that drying stuff on my face!

The most recent guinea pig was Noble Otter Barrbarr. My hands and skin felt very dry, so much so I had to get some lotion.

Have any of you tried this and noticed drying? I'd be interested in your experiences with using shaving soap as bath soap.

 

[nav]

Yes!

There are two main reasons for skin dryness from high quality artisan soaps...

Either too much coconut oil or too much fragrance oils, especially synthetic oils as opposed to essential oils.

My experience was such that just about all artisan soaps were either irritating my skin ("frag burn"), or causing dryness or the scent was causing migraines. Either way, it was unpleasant for me.

I make my own unscented soap and my skin has never been so good!!
The underlying ingredients are doing their job without any irritation/dryness from fragrance oils.

 

[jesseix]

Have certainly experienced this. I’ve wondered if some of it has to do with the fact that in the shower our skin is getting constant hot water, versus shaving where that’s not the case.
Clearly I’m not a chemist of dermatologist, but regardless it definitely makes me realize that the good soapers really know what they’re doing, especially those that produce shave and bath soaps and do both of them well.

 

[Tallships]

I've also found that some of these artisan soaps that I've used dry or irritate my skin. I have settled in on the more traditional soaps like kilos of Cella or Vito's and surprisingly, Dove Mens 3 in 1 shave soap not only makes a great lather but leaves my skin well-hydrated.

 

[blethenstrom]

I have been making both bath soap and shave soap and maybe this will help. Bath soap and shave soap have quite different ingredients, because the goals of the soaps are different. Shave soap we want mainly a nice strong, stable lather with good slickness. In bath soap we want a soap that cleans and lathers ok bubbly lather at that and that leaves our skin feel good.

Shave soap is mainly made up of Stearic Acid, Palmitic Acid which is part of Stearic Acid, Soybean Wax, Tallow, Palm Kernel Oil and several of the butters. Then there will be a bit of Coconut oil to make it easier to lather. Now for a conditioning soap you would want Oleic, Linoleic, Linolenic and Ricinoleic Acids in your soap.

A conditioning soap is a soap that leaves your skin feel good. The ingredients in shave soap does NOT contain high amounts of these conditioning acids, because they reduce the lather formation and defeats the main objective with a shave soap. If you see a shave soaps with larger amounts of olive, canola, safflower, sunflower oils it will not produce a good lather. There is one exception to this and that is Castor oil which is as far as I know the only oil that contain Ricinoleic acid. Castor oil also help with the stability of the lather. A soap maker that knows what they are doing should add castor oil to make the lather more stable AND for the soap to be more conditioning.

Now I think why people like tallow based shave soap is that it also contain a good bit of Oleic acid which will help with the skin feel post shave vs Stearic Acid based which does not. Furthermore, many artisan shave soaps have added clay, usually bentonite clay, for extra slip and this can also contribute to dry skin feeling post shave because clay will attract moisture. i.e rob it from the skin. Think clay masks that ladies do to clean the pores of their face.

Now I have been using my home made shave soap in the shower without issues of dryness, but I have castor oil in my soap so it may counteract the issues.

 

[The Blackadder]

I have been making both bath soap and shave soap and maybe this will help. Bath soap and shave soap have quite different ingredients, because the goals of the soaps are different. Shave soap we want mainly a nice strong, stable lather with good slickness. In bath soap we want a soap that cleans and lathers ok bubbly lather at that and that leaves our skin feel good.

Shave soap is mainly made up of Stearic Acid, Palmitic Acid which is part of Stearic Acid, Soybean Wax, Tallow, Palm Kernel Oil and several of the butters. Then there will be a bit of Coconut oil to make it easier to lather. Now for a conditioning soap you would want Oleic, Linoleic, Linolenic and Ricinoleic Acids in your soap.

A conditioning soap is a soap that leaves your skin feel good. The ingredients in shave soap does NOT contain high amounts of these conditioning acids, because they reduce the lather formation and defeats the main objective with a shave soap. If you see a shave soaps with larger amounts of olive, canola, safflower, sunflower oils it will not produce a good lather. There is one exception to this and that is Castor oil which is as far as I know the only oil that contain Ricinoleic acid. Castor oil also help with the stability of the lather. A soap maker that knows what they are doing should add castor oil to make the lather more stable AND for the soap to be more conditioning.

Now I think why people like tallow based shave soap is that it also contain a good bit of Oleic acid which will help with the skin feel post shave vs Stearic Acid based which does not. Furthermore, many artisan shave soaps have added clay, usually bentonite clay, for extra slip and this can also contribute to dry skin feeling post shave because clay will attract moisture. i.e rob it from the skin. Think clay masks that ladies do to clean the pores of their face.

Now I have been using my home made shave soap in the shower without issues of dryness, but I have castor oil in my soap so it may counteract the issues.

Very interesting read. So, for conditioning purposes is it advisable to look for castor oil among soap ingredients? I think the only soap in my den which lists castor oil is Taconic and SV. Might be other ones which I haven’t noticed

 

[blethenstrom]

Very interesting read. So, for conditioning purposes is it advisable to look for castor oil among soap ingredients? I think the only soap in my den which lists castor oil is Taconic and SV. Might be other ones which I haven’t noticed

I am glad it was helpful. I just checked and besides castor oil, butters as well. Butters are decent in oleic acid. Like Shea, Cocoa, mango butters and I am sure there are more as well. However, the butters are comparatively more expensive so many have very little of them (far down on the ingredient list).

 

[blethenstrom]

Very interesting read. So, for conditioning purposes is it advisable to look for castor oil among soap ingredients? I think the only soap in my den which lists castor oil is Taconic and SV. Might be other ones which I haven’t noticed

One thing to watch is that some list the ingredients pre saponification like Tallow, or they may use the INCI post saponification names like Potassium Tallowate and Sodium Tallowate. The post saponification INCI name for castor oil is (Sodium Castorate or Sodium Ricinoleate) and (Potassium Castorate or Potassium Ricinoleate)

 

[Doc Dan]

@blethenstrom and @nav Maybe I should talk to you all about learning to make my own soap.

 

[nav]

Very interesting read. So, for conditioning purposes is it advisable to look for castor oil among soap ingredients? I think the only soap in my den which lists castor oil is Taconic and SV. Might be other ones which I haven’t noticed

Majority of shaving soaps contain castor oil these days.
I don't like the lather produced with the inclusion of castor oil so I don't use it in my own shaving soap.
Excluding it doesn't impact the conditioning aspect of my soap.

 

[blethenstrom]

Majority of shaving soaps contain castor oil these days.
I don't like the lather produced with the inclusion of castor oil so I don't use it in my own shaving soap.
Excluding it doesn't impact the conditioning aspect of my soap.

Do you tend to use more butter or tallow in your shave soap?

 

[nav]

Do you tend to use more butter or tallow in your shave soap?

I do use more butters (don't have access to tallow).

As an experiment, I made a soap with 82% butters but I think it's diminishing returns as I didn't find much difference to my soap with half this amount of butters.

My experience of 18 months of fairly extreme level experimentation has confirmed it's the overall formula that matters, and not any one ingredient.

Like adding beeswax or lanolin doesn't magically change the soap for the better, but will go towards enhancing an already great formula.

 

[abies]

I have been making both bath soap and shave soap and maybe this will help. Bath soap and shave soap have quite different ingredients, because the goals of the soaps are different. Shave soap we want mainly a nice strong, stable lather with good slickness. In bath soap we want a soap that cleans and lathers ok bubbly lather at that and that leaves our skin feel good.

Shave soap is mainly made up of Stearic Acid, Palmitic Acid which is part of Stearic Acid, Soybean Wax, Tallow, Palm Kernel Oil and several of the butters. Then there will be a bit of Coconut oil to make it easier to lather. Now for a conditioning soap you would want Oleic, Linoleic, Linolenic and Ricinoleic Acids in your soap.

A conditioning soap is a soap that leaves your skin feel good. The ingredients in shave soap does NOT contain high amounts of these conditioning acids, because they reduce the lather formation and defeats the main objective with a shave soap. If you see a shave soaps with larger amounts of olive, canola, safflower, sunflower oils it will not produce a good lather. There is one exception to this and that is Castor oil which is as far as I know the only oil that contain Ricinoleic acid. Castor oil also help with the stability of the lather. A soap maker that knows what they are doing should add castor oil to make the lather more stable AND for the soap to be more conditioning.

Now I think why people like tallow based shave soap is that it also contain a good bit of Oleic acid which will help with the skin feel post shave vs Stearic Acid based which does not. Furthermore, many artisan shave soaps have added clay, usually bentonite clay, for extra slip and this can also contribute to dry skin feeling post shave because clay will attract moisture. i.e rob it from the skin. Think clay masks that ladies do to clean the pores of their face.

Now I have been using my home made shave soap in the shower without issues of dryness, but I have castor oil in my soap so it may counteract the issues.

Reading your comment made me wonder again if there's maybe too much focus in shaving on volume or appearance of lather.

Years ago I talked to a chemist who worked for a large personal care products company soap company. They said something really similar to you, that soaps (as in sodium fatty acid) that lather well tend to irritate more people's skin, and soaps that tend to be more soothing to skin don't lather as well. I think they gave the example of coconut and olive oil soaps specifically; it stuck with me because I could see how that would be the case based on their structure.

 

[blethenstrom]

Reading your comment made me wonder again if there's maybe too much focus in shaving on volume or appearance of lather.

Years ago I talked to a chemist who worked for a large personal care products company soap company. They said something really similar to you, that soaps (as in sodium fatty acid) that lather well tend to irritate more people's skin, and soaps that tend to be more soothing to skin don't lather as well. I think they gave the example of coconut and olive oil soaps specifically; it stuck with me because I could see how that would be the case based on their structure.

I think you are right here. You have two aspects to lather in my opinion. Cushion and slickness. The thick lather gives us a bit more cushion from the blade on our skin and the slickness how slippery our skin is. Personally a thick cushioning lather, will not give me as close shave as a bit thinner slicker lather will. This is especially true for milder razors. However, with more aggressive razors you may want that real thick lather to protect better. There seem to be a tradeoff here.

You can have wonderful very slick lather from regular bar soap like Irish spring, but the lather will dissipate quickly and very little cushion. I have had very good shaves from regular bar soap and I think that this was even common practice in the olden days. Maybe we have become a bit too picky regarding the lather in the latter years and maybe that is putting pressure on the shave soap manufacturers to make soap that lathers wonderfully but may suffer in other areas. I'm not sure. I do know that you can make a shave soap that does lather well, but that will not dry out your skin. It just takes a bit more in developing the recepie.

 

[blethenstrom]

@blethenstrom and @nav Maybe I should talk to you all about learning to make my own soap.

We can certainly do that. A while back we created SMAUG "Soap Makers And Users Group" There will be some useful information there and we can discuss soap making etc.

Soap Makers And Users Group (SMAUG) - https://www.badgerandblade.com/forum/threads/soap-makers-and-users-group-smaug.644741/

 

[Doc Dan]

We can certainly do that. A while back we created SMAUG "Soap Makers And Users Group" There will be some useful information there and we can discuss soap making etc.

Soap Makers And Users Group (SMAUG) - https://www.badgerandblade.com/forum/threads/soap-makers-and-users-group-smaug.644741/

Thanks!

Do you use a crockpot?

 

[BigJ]

Interesting read!!

My summary is that shaving soap and bath soap have different goals. So it is best to evaluate each option for the intended use. Just my $0.02!!

 

[nav]

Reading your comment made me wonder again if there's maybe too much focus in shaving on volume or appearance of lather.

Years ago I talked to a chemist who worked for a large personal care products company soap company. They said something really similar to you, that soaps (as in sodium fatty acid) that lather well tend to irritate more people's skin, and soaps that tend to be more soothing to skin don't lather as well. I think they gave the example of coconut and olive oil soaps specifically; it stuck with me because I could see how that would be the case based on their structure.

I don't think that's quite what they meant...

Coconut soap yields myristic and lauric fatty acids in a soap, which are very cleansing.
That is, they remove oil from the skin like a surfactant, thereby drying the skin.

Olive oil is like 76% oleic acid, which is very moisturizing for the skin.

When developing a shaving soap, one must balance the recipe to cover off all aspects; creamy/stable lather, easy to lather, able to hold sufficient water, moisturizing/not drying. This process is much more intricate than making a bath soap.