Thread: glycerin added to shaving lather

does anyone have an opinion for adding glycerin to your shaving lather. I have been adding
a few drops of glycerin to my shaving lather for years and it seems to help and was wondering
if others have an opinion.

Basically glycerin makes your lather slicker. If memory serves me correctly adding glycerin to soap or cream equals 'Super Lather'.

There is a thing called 'Uber Lather' where you combined a dab of shave cream, load your brush with shave soap and add a few drops of glycerin, makes some fantastic shaving lather.................

Works wonders for modern Williams shave soap puck. Makes the lather a little slicker and allows it to hold more water.

Bob

Yep - Our water is very hard here so a few drops of glycerin and some aloe vera gel makes williams (my favorite) slick and the lather is dense!

When a fatty acid is saponified using either either sodium or potassium hydroxide, the result is the salt of the fatty acid (soap) plus glycerol, also called glycerin or glycerine. For soaps produced in an industrial setting, the glycerol might be removed and sold as a separate product. In other instances the glycerol is left mixed with the soap.

Thus, for soaps produced in small batches from fats like tallow, palm oil, etc. and sodium and potassium hydroxide, , the glycerol (glycerin) is likely to be left in the soap. In such a case, it might not be necessary to add glycerin.

However, if you find that the shaving soap has been produced by combining cosmetic grade salts of fatty acid like sodium palmitate, potassium stearate, etc. it is possible that the glycerol has been removed. In that case you may find that the addition of glycerin will improve your lather. You might just be adding back the glycerol that was removed during the purification process.