Shaving Soap and Vegetable Glycerin Help

According to the die-hard mug-n-brush shaving dudes over on the Badger and Blade website (yes- there's a forum dedicated to shaving gurus!), a good shaving soap lather is one that will not collapse for at least 10 minutes. It's a great site to research when trying to formulate a good shaving soap.

I use 24% castor in mine, and on the advice of a fellow shaving soap maker, I add 10% ppo of vegetable glycerin to increase the longevity factor in my formula. I add it as an extra, add-on thing- i.e.- it's not included in my oil/fat calculations.

Anyway, it seems to work quite well in my formula because my shaving lather lasts for at least 15 minutes. I say 'at least' because..... well...... because it's veryboring watching and measuring lather by the clock, if you know what I mean . So, when my lather showed absolutely no signs of petering out by the time 15 minutes had gone by (5 minutes over what the gurus say is acceptable), I figured I had a winner and didn't bother watching any longer.

I won't give away my exact formula, but I'm more than happy to share the 'bare bones' of it:

My total liquid oil amount comes to 34% (that includes the castor amount). My hard fats, which include a good % of beef tallow, a combo of high stearic butters, and a tiny amount of coconut oil (I keep the CO under 10%), comes to a total of 66%. I then add the total oil/fat amount up and add 10% of vegetable glycerin ppo.

I also make mine with coconut milk as part of my liquid amount and some clay.

When worked up properly as per the directions on the Badger and Blade site, my shaving lather is thick and foamy, just like it came out of a Barbasol can of shaving cream. My hubby loves it (he's a mug and brush dude, too.)

IrishLass

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