Thread: Soap that dries out

Rub the brush tips on a glycerine bar before the soap. May help.

I guess everyone is not understanding. I know how to make the soap work for me. I was hoping someone would know how to help the maker improve the formula so the user does not have this problem. These people are new to the shaving soap business and I was hoping to help them out.

Originally Posted by mackie

Thank you all for your comments and yes I have been at this for a long time. Long time member here. I just got to talking to these people at the craft show and told them I would give them feedback on their product. The husband wants to get into straight shaving. They are really nice people and I wanted to help them out with their product. They make a great hand and bath soap but are just getting into shaving soap. There must be something their formula is missing or does not have enough of to keep the lather from drying out. They told me the ingredients and here they are.
Olive, coconut, palm and caster oil, Shea butter, Steric acid and clay.

I'm making a batch of soap myself and my ingredients are similar but I have to wait a few days before Incan test it myself. Olive oil has no place in shaving soap though my guess would be they have a high amount of coconut oil (over 10%) which is causing the dryness.

Thanks Klingenmeister for your help

I was messing around and I can almost guarantee that they are using too much betonite clay. I did an experiment and this is most likely the cause of it drying to quickly.

Originally Posted by Mastershake

I was messing around and I can almost guarantee that they are using too much betonite clay. I did an experiment and this is most likely the cause of it drying to quickly.

Normally I would agree, but the ingredient list appears to be in order by weight with Stearic before clay. There isn't a lot of Stearic that gets added which would put the clay on the right path. Coconut as a 2nd highest oil would put Olive oil around 50%, CO around 30%, 10% Shea & 10% Castor with the Stearic and clay added after trace.

Originally Posted by mackie

I have no idea what all is in it. People keep their formulas secret, but I just thought that if there are any soap makers here they would know what was missing.

Well, make sure he superfats it at the end. Cold or Hot process? What is the ratio lye/fat?

Saponification is the result of that equation. So if he adds a little fat (glycerin, lanolin, shea butter (which doesn't saponify)) and experiment with values, he should be OK. Hope that helps.

Originally Posted by klingenmeister

Normally I would agree, but the ingredient list appears to be in order by weight with Stearic before clay. There isn't a lot of Stearic that gets added which would put the clay on the right path. Coconut as a 2nd highest oil would put Olive oil around 50%, CO around 30%, 10% Shea & 10% Castor with the Stearic and clay added after trace.

I didn't think any shave soaps contained olive oil & certainly not in that %ge.
May not be the answer to the OP but I think their product could be better formulated without the olive oil.

Originally Posted by onimaru55

I didn't think any shave soaps contained olive oil & certainly not in that %ge.
May not be the answer to the OP but I think their product could be better formulated without the olive oil.

My thoughts were merely an estimate of what he said was in it and given that they are soap makers, they use olive oil in pretty much everything. I'm sure they just didn't know to use tallow or palm oil for shaving soap.