Thread: Soapmaking lather question?

I'm not sure how many soap makers we have but I recently tried my hand at making a batch of shaving soap using a recipe I found online. It's cured for a little over 4 weeks and is reasonably hard so I gave it a try this morning. It seemed to lather up fairly well but the lather was almost gone on the rest of my face by the time I got the first cheek shaved. My question is what would cause this?

Here is the recipe I used and scented it with tea tree/cedarwood/cyprus

10oz Castor Oil
10oz Coconut Oil
8oz Grapeseed Oil
30oz Olive Oil

My guess is the olive oil. Olive oil can be kind of tricky in soap making. Too much and it will kill the lather. Low or even medium quality oil and it can kill the lather. I've made bar soap a couple of times and the one time I made it with olive oil it had more of a creamy lather rather than suds.

I just remembered that I tried shaving with Dr. Bronner's bar soap once and it lathered similar to this, look nice and foamy but it was more airy, probably why it disappears so quickly. I'll use it as regular soap anyways since I love the tea tree smell and try another batch maybe with more castor and less olive oil. Thanks for the help though I believe your correct.

None of the oils listed in that recipe will provide lasting shaving lather. Switch to tallow or the non animal alternatives and craft soaps for shaving. There are very few published recipes for shave soap that work well that I have found for obvious reasons.

I'm going to try a batch this weekend with tallow. Do you have any recommended recipes or should I use just tallow and punch it in a lye calc?

Originally Posted by 62belair

I'm going to try a batch this weekend with tallow. Do you have any recommended recipes or should I use just tallow and punch it in a lye calc?

I made a great one for lasting lather about 6 months ago, if I can find the amount of tallow i will let you know later.

Originally Posted by 62belair

I'm going to try a batch this weekend with tallow. Do you have any recommended recipes or should I use just tallow and punch it in a lye calc?

okay allright already, i'll tempt fate by posting up on the subject what got me canned elsewheres.

First, i'm no expert on soap-making (yet), but an extreme DIY-type with some technical knowledge, practical experience, and a wild hair here and there (hence the razor)

Second, i'm going to share a recipe here that was offered to me by the foremostest _SHAVING_ soap expert with which i've had the pleasure of exchanging ideas. I'm not going to get around to trying the recipe real soon, so offer it up for anyone with a blade to give a go.

Before i do that, I'll lay out some of the concepts and ideas i sponged from the Chemist and elsewhere (a bit of experience too).

1. Saponification is the making of soap from combining a caustic solution with fats-or as some suppliers proudly proclaim via flashing banners: "No Lye*, No Soap".

*"Lye" in the realm of soap-making sometimes is used to refer to KOH (a/k/a caustic potash or potash lye) as well as NaOH (good old-fashioned drain-cleaning, soap-making, skillet cleaning/ hominy-making lye. Potassium hydroxide is also what one makes via leaching wood ashes-and heck yeah, i'm going to do that too (i heat with wood).

NaOH and KOH are bases, NOT ACIDS. But either (acid or base) is caustic/corrosive and should be handled with care. If either remains in your product at completion, then you made a mistake. I always final test with my tongue. (Hot Process vs. Cold Process is beyond the scope here-can be learned anywhere). But please make accurate, triple-checked measurements and aim for a full 5% lye discount.

2. I am told that NaOH "makes a poor lather". And everybody knows that KOH makes a soft/liquid soap. Guess what? The guru tells me that you _use both_ to get a good lather** from a durable puck This could be tricky if you let it. Don't let it-essplained in recipe.

**I'm after a fat thick durable lather. (Flavors and scents and colors can be added later if desired.)

pardon my rambles.

3. Since I collect game for the freezer and run into lots of "free" fat processing such animals, I'm only interested in soap recipes with "tallow". I'm out (of tallow), but should have some more in November (provided i get my rifle built), if my archer friends don't give me some sooner. In my limited experience animal fat makes the soap harder-which would allow more KOH (better later).

4. That is where "shave soap" recipes generally fail. Go look at the freebie ("shave" soap) recipes and you'll see normal soap basics-plus a dab of this or that oil "for lather" plus clay and a manly scent. BINGO! you get nice-smelling, short-lived foam. works great for hand/bathing and i was out of that too...

MY POINT is that bath soap and SHAVING soap are not the same thing.
MY POINT is that bath soap and SHAVING soap are not the same thing. (i said that again)

One is designed for surfactant action the other for foaming properties. Try some of those poorly foaming "shave" soaps out for washing-might be great for that, mine certainly is.

5. Anybody still here? Here's what me and my teacher came up with (in open forum):

Deer tallow is very close to beef. You lose a touch of palmitic for a touch of linoleic and otherwise it's pretty similar. Bump your stearic acid up by about 4% to compensate and use your usual beef tallow soap recipe.

55% deer tallow, 23% stearic acid, 22% castor oil should work fine. Split the fat weights about 60/40 and calculate KOH for 60% of the recipe and NaOH for 40%. If you want a softer soap, go higher on the KOH side (70/30 for instance) for harder soap, go higher on the NaOH side.

If you want to use Myristic or Lauric acid instead of Ricinoleic, you will need massively more stearic acid to compensate, to the point where the recipe will be less than 30% of your deer tallow, so I'd go with the Castor instead of palm kernel or coconut.

If anyone doesn't fully understand the "splitting" of weights for lye calculations, please ask for clarification. I "get it" but haven't done it yet. Methinks i can essplain it. The Learned One speaks of the particular acids which make up the fats in varying proportions. THESE is are _part_ of what gives each soap its final characteristics. The proportions of the salts is the other major factor. Clay, EO's, colors, scents, are just icing on the cake or fluff-either way you see it. I want to nail the foam aspect before i bother with the fluff.

Couple more comments.

"Glycerin" is all soaps-as they are made. The big MFG's remove the glycerins and sell them to other markets. We don't but that is why hand-made soaps are so lovely to use. IN ORDER to make a clear soap, solvents (alcohol and sugar i unnerstand) are added after saponification which causes opacity to be avoided and is very pretty. But that no one has proved this to make a _better_ lather, so i'm leaving that out too for now.

Also, since i have plenty of bentonite clay on hand, and it is added to nearly all "shave" soaps, but that some folks say it makes no difference--I'm going to split my next batch and add clay to one, leaving it out of the other. Then i'll have my answer, feel free to get yours in similar fashion.

There are great charts out there showing the balance of the fatty acids (and the properties they're noted to impart) of most commonly available fats for soap-making. Great "lye" calculators too, but we have to work "around" the fact that you specify one salt or the other in those-hence the "splitting". I use multiple calculators for cross-checking (not an issue once you develop your recipe).

I'm hoping to focus on the shaving-foam-producing-properties of the product and not the basics of soapmaking or personal smells or flavors preferences.

And i'm not in it to save money, i could save lot of time and money by using the dollar-pucks from the box store. I'm in it to produce a good product, to reduce waste from my harvest, and 'cuz i like doing stuff, especially old timey stuff you can read about in Foxfire.

Give that a whirl and report back yo.

cheerios and charlie bravos!

*btw if someone finds a place where he/she can buy stearic acid _and_ KOH, lmk.

Originally Posted by WadePatton

okay allright already, i'll tempt fate by posting up on the subject what got me canned elsewheres.
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If you don't mind, how/why would a soap recipe get you "canned"?

Originally Posted by Nubo

If you don't mind, how/why would a soap recipe get you "canned"?

too much enthusiasm for the room maybe? mods don't esplain. i did say i was "done" and was going to "lurk mode" in ref to whatever. but i'm not about to lurk where i can't can't post.

(don't mind you asking, but also don't care to run afoul of the group here, so please PM any more discussion of such.)

but let us not derail the thread and maybe talk about making proper shaving foam from soaps made at home by us who aren't smart enough to order it from stores, or just like doing everything the hard way.


to that end, i'm going to the pharmacist to see what he can order in the way of soaping supplies. be neat to get it all at one place no shipping.

I've been making soap for years. Drop the olive oil content down to nothing, or %5 max and replace the remainder of the olive oil with beef tallow. Olive kills lather in anything other then a small quantity. If you want a pure vegetable soap, raise the amount of coconut and castor oil that you are using as they are the oils that make a soap bubbly.

Also when it comes to shaving soap in particular, a normal recipe will not generally be very slippery, certainly not good enough for shaving. Add around %3 of soap clay to the soap to add a very good glide to the lather.

Making a normal bar soap is easy but as soon as you go into making shaving soaps, things get complicated. Good luck.