5 Attachment(s)
Standing on the shoulders of giants......
So I have been curious as to how to make shaving soap, specifically a good soft "Italian" soap or cream. I decided to pursue this a little a cooked up a batch of soap based off of a thread on the Shave My Face forum. Didn't turn out as soft as I wanted, but a great soap (and I now have enough shaving soap to last me a good many years). Fast forward a few weeks and I decided to give it another go....
Decided to try 1/2 pound batches. This was done for a few reasons: only need so much soap on hand, have many recipes/variations I want to try, any smaller and it becomes very difficult to accurately measure the oils and lye. When making batches this small, make sure you measure the ingredients in grams, using ounce measures can make you end up with a soap that is still caustic after cooking (guess how I know...).
I measured out my 4 recipes the night before:
Attachment 161822
I chose these little crock pots because they are just big enough to make a 1/2 pound batch. I had to stir down two batches when I added the lye, but they were fine besides that. BTW, Walmart sells em for $9.99
Assembled my tools the morning of battle:
Attachment 161824
Notice the Safety Goggles. Lye is nothing to take lightly.
This is all of them after about 1hr cooking. Takes about 3 hrs to totally saponify and use up the Lye.
Attachment 161825Attachment 161826Attachment 161827
These are all super fatted to 7%. The "norm" is 5% but I wanted a little room for error do to the very small batches I was making. Most soapers make 5+ pound batches, so they can be off a few grams or even ounces in their measurements and still be ok.
Soap 2A is a modification of the Lye mixture of my previous batch for a softer soap. Made up of lard, coconut, castor, stearic acid, and a dab of lanolin
3A is a MdC clone and is made up of coconut oil and stearic acid. this is super fatted after cooking with glycerin.
1A Tallow, Caster, Coconut, and stearic
1B is a mod of 1A with Tallow, Castor, Palm, and stearic
I will let you know how it goes, wish me luck!