Thread: Soft natural shaving soap

Hi everyone
Getting an organic nice and smooth lather without strange ingredients or aditives can be hard. Specially a non allergenic and non irritating one. So I decided to make my own. I used the hot saponification method and used 300g of sweet almond oil, 275g of olive oil, 145 ml of water, 72g of NaOH, and 80 ml of pure liquid glicerin when the mixture cooled below 100ºF. You must be familiar with the saponification techniques before you try this but it can be quite rewarding.
Does anyone has experience of making your own soaps?
All the best
Joao

Never tried to make my own soap, but it sounds interesting. How much soap does that batch yield, and does it work? I suppose you have yet not tried it so part of the questions may have to wait

Hi
I already had experience of soap making. I only adapted a recipe to be mainly olive and sweet almond oils, that are known to be skin friendly oils. I added glycerin to make lather even more smooth. The olive oil gives a very thin and slipery lather. And yes, I have tried it! It does not stand behind the DOVO extra soap (Rasierseif, aluminum can) I usually use. And it is much, much less expensive. A good DOVO soap costs almost 25 euros each. I made arond 0.5 Kg of soap for about 4 or 5 euros (the expensive part is really the sweet almond oil). I added no fragrance to redue irritating factors the much as I could. But it not really needed and no, you don't end up smelling like olive oil!! LOL!!
It worked just about fine for me.
You can have further instructions about soap making at:

MMS - Lye Calculator

and you can try different combinations of oils. The kind of oil you use can really make a diference...
Good luck
Joao

Yes, I forgot something. If you intend to do soap, dont forget to check the Ph before you use it, usually you can get 8-9, or even lower until 7 (optimal but almost impossible). You can compare with other soaps to get a comparison. To measure the Ph you can use Ph paper strips like

pH Test Paper Strips - 1 to 14 scale litmus paper | Edmund Scientific

They are cheap and can be found almost everywhere.
The Ph will decrease over time after the soap is "ready", so let it cure for at least one week in a clean, cold and dry place before trying it.
Once you start doing it, it is very simple after all...