Thread: Buying soap for the scuttle - Stearic Acid might be the way to go for warm lather

I think I've been more interested in this than most, because I started "scuttle shaving" right out of the gate, but I've been trying to figure out why some soaps absolutely thrive when heated and others become a shell of their cold-shave selves.

I'm not sure how I didn't notice this before, because I buy both tallow and vegan soaps and love both. But when I separated all the soaps (out of my collection of forty or so) that give me the best warm lather shave, they were 100% stearic acid based and not tallow. Now, this ain't science, this is just trial and error, but I was surprised.

I have a lot of tallow soaps that are my all-time favorites and for a cold shave, they perform as good as any other soap in my house. But a few of them (some dramatically) vanish when they get near heat.

Anyway, just some observations. I'm gonna start really giving my tallow soaps a chance in the scuttle to try and prove my theory wrong. We'll see!

In the beginning I found some soaps didn't do well heated to much too. I mostly don't use a scuttle anymore, but I did learn that super heated water really does not bode well for most soaps, I use hot tap water only to charge my scuttle. I,m not sure what my hot water is set at.
When I do use it, I run a scuttle full of hot water , then a sink full. Set the scuttle in the sink , take a shower, empty the scuttle fill with fresh hot water, and I just learned this from Obie, about a teaspoon or tablespoon of hot water in the top bowl of your scuttle for the heat transference.
So far no soaps have behaved bad in this method. The lather is warm and does not break down, any hotter and I've found no benefit, but YMMV.
I now face lather 95% of the time, so the scuttle gets dusty, Good luck and we,ll all be looking forward to your results. Tc

I use Col. Conk Bay Rum soap,I get the water hot and running, run my brush under it to heat it up, then swish it around on the soap. It makes a great lather and stays on your face. I've tried the cold shave and hated it!. Hot shaves from now on.

Ok, I got nothing going on today so it was time to do some scuttling. I pulled out four tallow soaps that I have had great cold shaves with and put them to the test in a tap-water hot scuttle. Queen Charlotte, Stirling, Ballenclaugh and Dapper Dragon. I'm a big supporter of both Stirling and Ballenclaugh and despite my very best efforts, none of the four of these tallow soaps stood up to the heat of the scuttle. Even before lathering, you can see the suds disappearing in the scuttle bowl.

Most interesting, I did back to back lathers with Stirling Grapefruit and Country Club Grapefruit. The first ingredient in the Stirling is beef tallow, the first in CC is stearic acid. The Stirling gave me a lather that was borderline depressing, while the Country Club gave me piles of cushiony, thick lather. I actually think it might have benefitted from the heat. Crazy right?

I'm not bothered by this because I fluctuate between cold shaving and scuttle shaving. I'm not into hot lather on a hot day. So I think I'm gonna divide my stearic acid soaps and my tallow soaps into hot and cold piles. This is just my unscientific conclusion. As always, YMMV.

That's very interesting. I've noticed that myself, but I hadn't attributed it to the tallow-based vs stearic acid based ingredients. Good observation. I'll experiment with that idea as well and see what the results are.

FOLLOW UP: Heading out, I realized, lather test or not, I have to actually shave today. So, I grabbed the same tub of Ballenclaugh that dissipated and failed in the scuttle earlier and I gave it a regular cold shave. OMG, what a difference! A mountain of slick lather. It looked like my face was hit by a twenty pound snowball. So, more evidence to support tallow as a preferred cold shave and stearic acid for a warm one.

Side note, if you cold shave and haven't tried a Ballenclaugh "Vanderpool" or "Hot Barrel Rose" - damn they are awesome!