Thread: using glycerine shaving soap

well basically im not shaving with a straight razor yet because i still need money to buy one so ive been using a lame fusion 5. anyways i wet shave with a brish mug and shaving soap. its clear pink glycerine shaving soap.it doesnt give me a great lather but i use it because im scared to use shaving creams because of the ingredients i feel like they might make my skin dry and aggravate my acne. atleast the glycerine soap doesnt dry me out. any suggestions or comments? thanks.

Glycerin soaps are made by the cottage industry suppliers. They usually have the trade mark of great scent and glide but poor protection and a short life. The lather basically is not as good.

Triple milled soaps are from major soap suppliers with big factories. The soaps last longer, give better protection, that is a thicker lather but if you want a great scent, you usually have to pay for it.

The triple milled soaps are IMHO better, but they often don't match the quality of the scents in the home produced product.

The reason is simple. Making good soap is dangerous, because of the chemical process and would be and is difficult to do in a cottage industry. The good quality scents come from essential oils but these are expensive.
Major suppliers have big overheads and the way they skimp on their products is by using synthetic oils which are much cheaper than essential oils and don't give the same level of satisfaction.

It's a conundrum.

Originally Posted by English

The good quality scents come from essential oils but these are expensive.

im new so you have to pardon my ignorance. haha. what would be a good quality scent soap and how much do they run for?

Originally Posted by English

The reason is simple. Making good soap is dangerous, because of the chemical process and would be and is difficult to do in a cottage industry. The good quality scents come from essential oils but these are expensive.

I'm going to have to disagree with you on this point. Making good soap is not particularly dangerous. Yes, you use lye, which must be handled carefully, but there are many other products around that contain lye (or NaOH if you want the correct chemical formula). For example, many drain cleaners (I actually just buy the lye flakes and use them for drain cleaning); I just stripped my deck and the stripper was just a very concentrated NaOH solution. It would probably have worked as a drain cleaner or to make soap. Essential oils are expensive on and ounce basis, but you don't need much if you are just trying to add sent to soap. A few ounces will last a long time.

All soap contains glycerine, it is a byproduct of the saponification reaction, glycerine based soaps just have a lot more added. I use glycerine based shaving soaps, and get a perfectly good lather. The trick is to get enough soap on the brush.

No problem if you wish to disagree.

I'm not a chemist but I have read other forums were this issue has been discussed at length by soap makers.
They said that using lye in your back shed and the chemical reactions that take place in the soap making process is not something you would want to be doing in your back shed. You should also check out the price of Sandalwood EO and you might change your or mind on why it is rarely found even in the more expensive perfumes, scents and cosmetic products.

from my experience you can get a perfectly great shave whether you use a milled soap or a glycerin based one. Its just a matter of what you prefer. I find the glycerin products make a very easy lather but the lather doesn't last as long and I find the scents tend to be too strong and chemical like for my tastes. I find the milled soaps provide a thick rich lather that doesn't disappear and the scents in the good soaps are more subtle but more natural smelling.

I like the trumpers line of milled soaps and Castle Forbes creams. Obviously I haven't tried them all and I'm sure others have favorites they will recommend.

Sorry to butt in, here is a link to give you the idea of prices for EO's. It's in GBP but you can always run it through a currency converter to give you a better idea. http://www.quinessence.com/alternate-ranges/s_z-12.htm

The page links directly to the Sandalwood Oil as English suggested (Hi Peter).

Originally Posted by English

No problem if you wish to disagree.

I'm not a chemist but I have read other forums were this issue has been discussed at length by soap makers.
They said that using lye in your back shed and the chemical reactions that take place in the soap making process is not something you would want to be doing in your back shed. You should also check out the price of Sandalwood EO and you might change your or mind on why it is rarely found even in the more expensive perfumes, scents and cosmetic products.

I think someone is trying (sucessfully) to buffalo you; this is exactly how soap was made for many years, in the back yard. Really, the chemistry is quite simple. first you put lye into water (always add lye to water not the other way around). This is not really chemistry, just dilution. You do the same thing everytime you use liquid drain cleaner. It does produce some fumes, so you need adequate ventilation, and you need to wear gloves and goggles, but again, you should wear these when ever you use drain cleaner as well. If you are particularly clumsy and get splashed with lye solution, use vinegar to neutralize.

Then you put the lye solution into the fat (again, lye into fat, not the other way) and stir. This is the actual chemistry part, the lye reacts with the fat, breaking out the glycerine and forming a sodium salt of the fatty acid - aka soap (the technical name for this reaction is saponification). The reaction takes time, seveal weeks infact, which is why soap must be cured. There are more exact instructions and recipies available at seveal locations on the internet. Soap

I've been fiddling with soaps for a while. She Who Must Be Obeyed is sensitive to most perfumes so I've been trying to find something that gives a good shave but doesn't have much smell to it. Mail order is pretty much out because I can't smell it before I buy it.

We were discussing the issue one day and my wife mentioned that when she used to use the Nutragena Facial Bar that it lathered quite readily and maybe it'd be worth a try. The worst that could happen was it wouldn't work and maybe it would.

It took a bit of fiddling to get the right water/soap proportion but I've been pretty happy with the results thus far. The lather lasts in the bowl long enough for me to get a three-pass shave in and gives pretty good protection. I'll be sticking with this stuff for a while.

Originally Posted by viegas703

well basically im not shaving with a straight razor yet because i still need money to buy one so ive been using a lame fusion 5. anyways i wet shave with a brish mug and shaving soap. its clear pink glycerine shaving soap.it doesnt give me a great lather but i use it because im scared to use shaving creams because of the ingredients i feel like they might make my skin dry and aggravate my acne. atleast the glycerine soap doesnt dry me out. any suggestions or comments? thanks.

Would that pink soap happen to be opaque -- Van Der Hagen or Surrey perhaps? If so, I agree with another post above that you're probably not loading enough soap onto the brush before moving on to developing your lather.