Thread: I made shaving soap

Or at least I think I did. Its been a little less than 24 hours so I haven't been able to use it yet. I suppose I could try it in a week or so but it won't be fully cured for about a month.

I used palm oil, palm kernel oil, sweet almond oil, castor oil and shea butter. Substituted aloe vera juice for half of the water and added bentonite clay for slickness. Spearmint/Peppermint EO for scent and no colorants since this was my first batch and I wanted to limit the variables in case something went horribly awry.

I used a pringles can for a mold since its about the same diameter as shaving soap and it may have worked if not for the plastic coating on the inside, which delaminated from the cardboard due to the heat of the saponification process ( I assume). This resulted in more of a meaty chud shape than the cylinder I was hoping for but luckily, the shape is the least important aspect of the soap. Next time I'll get some pvc pipe and make a proper mold. I can't wait to try it so I'll know what I need to tweak to make improvements.

Batch #1

Total oils 1 lb

Palm Kernel 30% 4.8 oz
Sweet Almond 25% 4 oz
Palm 22% 3.52 oz
Shea Butter 15% 2.4 oz
Castor 8% 1.28 oz

Lye 2.253 oz
Water (sub 50% aloe juice) 6.08 oz

2 tsp Bentonite clay
.4 oz EO blend (50/50 Peppermint/Spearmint)

Method:
-Prepare water/lye mixture & set aside to cool
-measure solid oils (palm kernel & shea) into pot and heat on stove @ medium until melted
-measure liquid oils and add to pot, remove pot from heat
-mix bentonite clay into room temperature lye mixture and add to pot when oils cool to about 100 degrees
-blend in pulses until raw soap reaches trace
-stir in EO
-Pour into mold (Pringles tube) and put in cardboard box w/ foam packing peanuts to insulate
-Unmold the next day and cut into chunks, set aside to dry for a month


Batch #1 Test Shave #1
About 70 hours after pouring

Lathers easily but it’s a weak lather. Too airy and dries fairly quickly. It is pretty slick but not so slick that I’m dropping the razor or can’t rinse it off after I’m done. Despite the pathetic lather it was a decent shave and one of the rare occasions where I didn’t end up with any weepers, nicks, lacerations or puncture wounds. Didn’t dry out my face afterwards like some soaps tend to. I think I accidentally made a brushless soap. Scent is not too strong, maybe could stand to be a little bit stronger actually. Very mildly cooling and minty. I’ll try it again in a week or so to see how it develops as it cures.

this is really cool; I've done the melt 'n pour route, but never truly from scratch. where do you pick up the lye and the oils?

I bought most of the oils from http://www.camdengrey.com/
You can also find some at the supermarket if you have one nearby that has an organic section. Castor oil will probably be in the pharmacy section since it is used as a laxative. Lye is a bit tougher. Its apparently used to produce meth so a lot of places are taking it off the shelves. I got mine at ACE Hardware in the plumbing section. Its a drain opener under the brand name Rooto. Just make sure the label says something like 100% lye (or caustic soda or sodium hydroxide or something like that). I believe Lowes carries something similar.

If you end up making soap, post the results...good or bad!

In the future you may want to keep it in the mold. I know, I know, that woulden't be a very interesting photo. The reason for curing for 30 days or so, is the lye continues to interact w/ the oils. Having it in the mold or keeping it wrapped holds in the heat so the reaction goes faster.
Great job! there's nothing like real cold pour soap from scratch.
Al

The next thing you need to look for is your acid base balance. If the soap has too much lye you would probably already know it from your first shave, it would have burned you, or at least been irritating. Worst case scenario, soap can form little clear bubbles of liquid lye.

Assuming you don't have an excess of lye, now you need to watch it for color changes associated with spoilage. that would mean you didn't have enough lye.
A super fatted soap can provide excellent moisturization, and lubrication as you described, but it can also go rancid if you weren't right on the money with your recipe.

your lather might be weak because it is super fatted, and not completely saponified, or it could be your choice of oils. I use a little coconut oil to boost my lather.

Well, I used soapcalc to determine the weights of all the ingredients and it uses a default lye discount of 5% as a buffer zone for the lye. It can be changed but I figured that was a good place to start so I left it. The shea butter was used as one of the base oils instead of being added at trace as a superfatting agent. I'm not totally convinced it makes a difference if its added at the beginning or at trace anyway. I'll have to do a little research into it. As far as the lather, I think next time I use the soap I'll try adding a little glycerin to it and see if that improves it at all and if so, I'll add some to the next batch of soap. I may try to play with the percentages a little too, maybe increase the castor oil a little. I'm trying to avoid coconut oil for now, even though pure coconut oil soap can apparently lather in saltwater. My girlfriend yelled at me and pulled out a skincare book with a list of comedogenic ingredients and coconut oil was up near the top.

Batch #1, Test shave #2

Pretty much the same as the first. Crappy lather but still a decent shave. After curing for 2 weeks its a little harder but the improvement in the lather is minimal and I don't see it getting better in the future so this batch is now a bath soap. Which leads into batch 2.

Batch #2
Olive 10%
Sweet Almond 10%
Palm 25%
Palm Kernel 25%
Shea Butter 15%
Castor 15%

I increased castor oil a lot, palm a little and decreased palm kernel a bit. Hopefully that will improve my lather issues. I also added a bit of glycerin (about 1/2 fl oz). I wanted to try something a bit different and replaced the water with espresso-strength coffee, hoping the scent would survive the saponification process, which it didn't. It gave the soap a nice caramel color though. I realized afterwards that I accidentally halved the amount of bentonite clay I intended to put in so I think this batch is going to turn into a hand-milling experiment. I'll try to add the extra clay, along with a little more coffee for scent and caffeine buzz. I'm not sure how much of a drying effect the caffeine will have, if any, but I'll add a bit more glycerin to offset it. Handmilling should also make the soap a bit harder, or so I've read. Hopefully it won't end in disaster.

Shaving soap V3 - I changed the oil percentages a bit in an attempt to get more lather (increasing palm and palm kernel, decreasing everything else slightly). I also wanted to try substituting beer for the water in the lye mixture because...well I guess I don't have a very good reason other than it sounded cool. Just a warning to anyone who may want to try this: lye added to beer smells like the world is ending. The mixture also got very hot, much hotter than a water mixture or even coffee. So hot that the rim of the nalgene bottle I mixed it in became brittle and broke off in several places when I was washing up afterwards. I unmolded and cut it about a day and a half later and was surprised to find that even though I left it unscented it smells a little sweet, almost like caramelized sugar. I'm hoping this one lathers better than my last 2 attempts as I'm set on rebatched bath soaps for a while.



Bath soap interlude - These are random batches of bath soaps I've made in between shaving soap attempts. The first one is lavendar scented. It was supposed to have some vanilla scent as well but the one my girlfriend bought must have been water or alcohol-based because it disappeared as soon as I added it. Should be ready to use in about a week. The second one is an attempt at making a facial soap. It uses chamomile and aloe juice for the liquid and the black color is caused by the activated charcoal (supposed to remove toxins and odors). Its scented with lavendar and tea tree oil. The third is my first shaving soap attempt (peppermint/spearmint) rebatched into a bar soap with a little liquid chlorophyll to give it a light green color. I bought the chlorophyll with the intention of coloring the absinthe shaving soap I'm planning on making once I get my recipe worked out. I got the EOs for the scent in yesterday and mixed up a little and so far I'm liking it a lot. My coffee shaving soap is shredded and waiting to be rebatched with some espresso coffee grounds into another bar soap.

Sounds like you have been busy! Let us know how it all works out, im really curious how the beer will affect it.