Thread: Making Homemade Shaving Soap

I will suggest that a good place to start will be to enter the world of cold process soap making. The melt and pour bases are not suited to what you are trying to do. A standard base recipe for shaving soap on an entry level would be something like 30% steriatic acid, tallow/palm oil, coconut oil with the difference being made up of other conditioning type oils (pumpkin, hemp, Avacado). You'll want to run a discount of 5% for your first cold process batch. Once you've gotten your feet wet you can experiment with using different "types" of lye (there are two types in this case, google CP soap making). As another wisely suggested olive oil is not a good choice as once saponified it does lather for $h@t. Have fun, soap making is a journey onto itself.

My kids and I make cold processed bar soap about once a month. When we make the soap I pour a little extra in a small two inch round mold and after it cures, about six weeks, I'll try shaving with it, most have been pretty good. Below is a link to a web site that we use when we're calculate our soap mixes. The web has a lot of information on cold processed soap making. Give it a try and have fun.

SoapCalc

Alright so just for fun I'm going to do some shaving soap. Here is the recipe for trial #1

Tallow 30%
Steriatic Acid 30%
Coconut oil 30%
Kokum Butter 3%
Liquid lanolin 3%
Aloe Butter 3%

35/65 sodium/potassium hydroxide
3% superfat

Not sure in the scent I intend to use. I've got some vetiver, lime, sandlewood, etc. I've actually got quiet a few essential oils for making cold process soap so we will see. I've also got some menthol crystals coming, which I won't use in this initial batch, but definitely use them in future batches.

What scents do people like here?

Using that much Stearic Acid in a cold process soap is going to make it seize, making it very thick and hard to pour.

Yup, your spot on it did seize, it was a giant pain in the backside and I have since commandeered one of my wife's crockpots (she really doesn't need two!). In this first batch i did mix the Steriatic Acid with only the Potassium hydroxide and used the other ingredients with the Sodium hydroxide, which helped with the seizing. I was ready for it as I had read most of the informative forum posts about shave soap making. I've never done HP before so I did a test run on some bar soap a friend asked me to make for his kids. Didn't really "boil/bubble" at all. It did pass the "zap" test. It was the first time I've ever done the zap test actually, I generally do CP and just cure it for 6 weeks before use, but I was curious. I'm still going to cure this batch as if it was CP just to be on the safe side since this batch is intended for children (ill also test a bar on myself before handing it over).

Majestic Soap? Are you an artisanal soap maker? Are you connected to any company I would know? I've got trial #2 set, same base recipe but I'm going to include some menthol crystals and eucalyptus in the second batch, but use HP this time around The Potassium/sodium ratio works as it creates a firm enough bar to unmold, not quiet as soft as Cello for example. I lathered a small piece from the first batch and it seems to lather well, and had good slick was on my hand, in time ill be able to comment on its performance during a shave.

Cheers and thanks for the heads up. Any thing I should know about HP soap making before I discover it the Hard Way?

Yea actually I am an artisan soap maker but mostly for personal use for me and my family. I actually just took on wet shaving recently and decided to work on making my own shaving soap too which is what brought me to this forum. Your recipe does look good … but as with the cold process once that stearic acid mixes with the lye it will immediately begin to thicken up which is why I would recommend you saponify the coconut oil and tallow first with about half to two thirds of your lye (doesn't have to be exact). Whip it up with your stick blender for about 10 minutes to speed things up a little then throw in the rest of you lye and start to pour in the MELTED stearic acid slowly as you stir. You can melt the stearic acid separately in a double boiler in the beginning as u make your lye and melt the tallow and coconut oil in the crockpot. Once you have everything in there stir them up good, cover the pot and keep an eye on it stirring it up about every 15 mins. I like to turn off the crockpot after the first stirring because it can get very hot and your soap will start to stick to the sides of the pot, it will still stay at around 150 degrees ( fahrenheit ). Once you pass the zap test you can mix in your Kokum, Lanolin and Aloe but if you're adding fragrance let it cool off below the flash point of whatever scent you're using before you throw it in.

Thanks for the crockpot tips. Yesterday was the first time is used the process. As such it wasn't pretty, but it made soap. I appreciate the tips. I like cold process for it simplicity, but HP is definitely the way to go for shaving soap. Once again thank you for your kind advice.

Let us know how the lather turns out.

Will do. Unfortunately I'm a wee bit cursed with hard water so I may have to use bottled water for "product photo" purposes.

I did a hot process shaving soap using Walmart's GV Shortening (The cheap stuff that is mostly beef tallow). The coconut oil was reduced to about 5% and some hemp oil (about 5%) for conditioning. It turned out great, more creamy lather than bubbly. My receipe was based on what I read on traditional shaving soaps from the early 1900's. No fragrance.