Thread: Shaving Cream Recipe

Can anyone recommend a recipe for decent shaving cream for use with a straight razor? I've tried the VDH (hard to lather) and Art of Shaving soaps and would like to try my hand at making my own. I like Sandlewood and have read that a variety of other ingredients/oils can also be included.

A Google search has turned up only a handful of results (I know many recipes are kept secret) and the one's I've found have glycerol in them (which I hear is bad). If anyone can point me to a versatile/well liked recipe or has any pointers, I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks

Glycerin, is small amounts is not a bad thing, it help retain the moisture and give a bit of slickness to the cream. It's pretty much in every shave cream

The problem with making your own shaving products is that it is not as simple as it sounds, and for the reasons you point out, there is not much information out there. Making your own products is amazing! but it would be very hard to come up with a better soap than VdH or AoS without spending a lot of time and effort in the process.

A few notes about your question: sandalwood is only used as the scent although any oil you add, changes the properties of the soap to a certain extent and some oils have beneficial properties as well. Also, pretty much every shaving product (soap or cream)uses glycerol, which is the fancy chemical name for glycerin. If you are determined to make soaps, I would suggest to read as much as you can about it first, select the method that you would like to use and then worry about the ingredients. In fact, it would be beneficial for you to try a few products before you jump in as it is hard to make a good product if you do not know what would work; then the issue of ingredients is a matter of using what is in the products that worked for you. If you make soaps or cream, start with very small batches like 1 oz or 2 at the time; write your observations carefully and change only one variable at the time.

I would like to turn to what is probably the most important piece of advice I can give you: if you are having problems lathering VdH or AoS soaps, perhaps you may want to work on your technique. VdH is definitely not the best soap around but it is serviceable and AoS "makes" fairly good soaps, I have tried both. You may want to take a look at the wiki for tips, perhaps this video would help to improve your technique:

YouTube - How To Build And Apply Traditional Shaving Lather