Originally Posted by
Annixter
I think your recipe makes a shaving cream rather than a shaving soap. If you are only using potassium hydroxide, your finished product is about the consistency of hair styling gel (from my experience with liquid soapmaking). That's partially why people use potassium hydroxide as the lye in liquid soap recipes because they are able to take the finished cream and easily dilute it with water into a liquid soap. I think a shaving soap needs either sodium hydroxide or a mixture of sodium hydroxide and potassium hydroxide (now my preference) to make it hard enough to be classified as soap and not cream. Essentially, from my understanding, if you can dig your finger into the cured product and remove a dollop, it's shaving cream and not soap.
On another note, have you considered using tallow in the recipe? A recipe using tallow will be superior in lather density/stability and moisturizing properties than one using only stearic acid and coconut oil. The addition of tallow might also firm up the finished product when using only potassium hydroxide to where it is more similar to shaving soap.