Thread: Making my own soap.

So I have made several pucks of soap so far and wanting to know what I could add to it to make it any better. I just use melt and pour Goats milk soap and I add about a tsp. of shea butter, about a tsp of coconut oil, 30 drops of vegetable glycerin, about 15 drops of whatever essential oil scent I want, and I also add some african black soap which has a bunch of other stuff in it like jojoba oil and palm oil and african black seeds. I really just want to perfect the soap and what suggestions/ideas that you guys have. I've thought about clays like bentonite and kaolin clay but I can only find bulk amounts of it.

Oh yeah the measurement are for about 3 ounces of soap.

No suggs but keep at it.My grandparents used to make soap with fireplace ashes and god knows what else,was used for everything.

Cosperryan, you have a plethora of options regarding soap modification/manufacturing, so you should have fun. I'll start by saying that you are limited by using melt and pour base, especially if it is a non-tallow base; it's hard to beat the qualities tallow imparts if you're only vegetable soaps. If you have been hesitant about making your own soap from scratch because you think it's too complicated or costly, I say give it a try. First, it is extremely easy to do (both cold and hot process). Second, while the upfront cost of ingredients seems high, $60 can get you enough base oils (tallow, stearic acid, castor oil, coconut oil), lye (both sodium hydroxide and potassium hydroxide), and essential oils to make 7+ pounds of respectable shaving soap. It's hard to beat approx. $10 per pound of homebrewed soap using melt and pour, and you'd spend hundreds of dollars for that much manufactured quality shaving soap. If you brew in smaller 1 pound batches (I do), you can also experiment and refine your process and recipe. There are plenty of good books and websites out there on soapmaking, and check out this SRP thread for some more info too: HERE

As for adding ingredients to either your homebrewed or melt-and-pour soaps, take a look at these two website for information on ingredients and possibly for purchasing: Essential Depot and Making Cosmetics (I have no professional affiliation with either website but have purchased from Essential Depot with good results).

For additional oils often used in soap, you might consider avocado oil (great moisturizer to superfat with because it has many unsaponifiables), coconut oil, jojoba oil, and almond oil (in very low quantities). Stay away from olive oil because it harms good shaving lather. Many more oils exist than these few, so experiment away.

If you wish to use clay, you can purchase bentonite at Vitamin Shoppe and on Amazon (called Aztec Indian Healing Clay) and kaolin clay at the above Making Cosmetics website and on amazon, both in small quantities.

I agree with Annixter.

Try to make a real soap, not melt and pour.


You will find plenty of information here

In my opinion, a shaving soap or cream cannot be made like a "regular soap". It simply needs different characteristics and base oils and fats are different. The procedure is the same, though. You can use both cold or hot process, but - in my opinion - the base ingredients must be chosen according to different criteria.

I want to make shaving soap. First I figured I needed to learn to make soap. I bought a bunch of oil, butters, clays, lye, EO's & FO's. I've make some really good CP & HP soap. As a matter of fact, they are outstanding for the shower. I haven't gotten around to making any shaving soap yet. Maybe soon. But then I look in my cabinet and see 40 something commercial tubs of soap and cream, more that I could ever use, and I think " I need more soap like I need a whole in the head".

there has been quite a bit of forum traffic on homemade shave soap lately.

making very good shave soap at home is EASY.

a smart guy reverse engineered Martin de Candre, and modified the formula to make it a little easier to make at home.

the ingredients are stearic acid, coconut oil, water and potassium hydroxide. I used stearic 55%, coconut 45%.

it works better than any other shave soap I have tried previously.

use soapcalc to get the quantities right- and measure as accurately as you can.

a word of caution- potassium hydroxide is lye. it will burn you if it gets on your skin. (more accurately, it will try to convert all of the oils in your skin into soap. there isn't enough oil in your skin, so it attacks the rest of your skin...) when it is mixed with water it reacts, and the fumes are dangerous to breathe (trying to make your lungs into soap...). add the lye to the water, and slowly. if you add the water to the lye, it will react rapidly and violently, and probably splash out and get on you (see the bit about lye and skin).

make it hot process using a crockpot. do not use metal containers or implements for this process. put the stearic and coconut into the crockpot and melt them together. I got impatient and melted them in the microwave first. put the water in a heat resistant container- I used a coffeemaker carafe from the thrift store. add the potassium hydroxide slowly, letting it react and dissolve into the water. do this outdoors. add that mix to the oils, mixing vigorously. let it cook for a couple of hours, then scoop it out into a mug or bowl or mold or whatever you want. MdC uses a jar, although sometimes they do a special run and put it into a wooden bowl. let it cure for a few days to a few weeks. it is ready to use as soon as it solidifies, but it handles a bit better with some aging. it will never get as hard as a commercial bath soap, but doesn't need to, as you are not handling it like a bar of soap. after a couple of weeks mine is about the consistency of stiff putty- I can still dig it out of the mold with my fingers and press it into the soap bowl. it also has an odd soapy smell which fades with aging. you can scent it with whatever essential oils or fragrance oils you want. include the amount of essential oils or fragrance oils in soapcalc, but add them last thing, after it has cooled off, but before it is too stiff to mix.

some things to not put in your shave soap:
any oil high in oleic acid- ie olive oil.
clay. dries the skin and dulls your razor.
abrasive bits of stuff as exfoliant: ground up oatmeal, walnut shells, whatever. the razor does a great job exfoliating your skin as is, and bits of junk get between the razor and your skin and do nothing but mischief.

Making soap at home is easy as drinking a glass of water. Of course, everyone must follow some safety guidelines because lye could be dangerous and bridger explained this very well.
All the best shaving creams I tried have two main ingredients: stearic acid and coconut oil. It is now a long time I make shaving creams/soaps myself and all of the ones I made which I consider to be the best had these two ingredients in relevant quantity: stearic acid first and then coconut oil. I do agree on the quantity suggested by bridger (55% stearic acid, 45% coconut oil) and this seems to be a good formula ensuring a super lathering property and slickness.

Originally Posted by bridger

the ingredients are stearic acid, coconut oil, water and potassium hydroxide. I used stearic 55%, coconut 45%.
. . . .

it will never get as hard as a commercial bath soap, but doesn't need to, as you are not handling it like a bar of soap. after a couple of weeks mine is about the consistency of stiff putty- I can still dig it out of the mold with my fingers and press it into the soap bowl.

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.

I made shaving soap first. now I'm thinking about branching out into regular soap.

Originally Posted by RJD

I want to make shaving soap. First I figured I needed to learn to make soap. I bought a bunch of oil, butters, clays, lye, EO's & FO's. I've make some really good CP & HP soap. As a matter of fact, they are outstanding for the shower. I haven't gotten around to making any shaving soap yet. Maybe soon. But then I look in my cabinet and see 40 something commercial tubs of soap and cream, more that I could ever use, and I think " I need more soap like I need a whole in the head".