I believe a lot of wet shavers have had bad experiences with bath soap sold as shaving soap, and while castor oil is nice in bath soap, it's not a good addition to shaving soap.
That's a pretty sweeping statement that I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with you on, based on my own shave formula with 20% castor and how well-received it is (not only by my wet-shaving hubby & son, but also by three experienced wet-shavers who agreed to test my shave soap and give me honest feedback- 2 from Badger & Blade and one from here at SMF). Just so we're clear, my shave soap/croap is definitely
not a bath soap- (it would really, really suck as a bath soap, trust me, lol ).
One good thing to keep in mind when it comes to soap-making is that a large % of a certain oil that might really suck in one shaving formula can be quite wonderful in a different shaving formula, depending on the other ingredients. You've probably heard the phrase "location, location, location" that real estate agents are fond of using. Well, as a soap-maker, I'm fond of the phrase "formula, formula, formula"!
with enough oleic acid (around 15% or so) to encourage quick lather.
I know of several wet-shavers that would disagree with that statement (they detest oleic in their shave soap). For what it's worth, though, mine contains 19% oleic, so I would respectfully have to disagree with
them! :mrgreen:
While castor oil is reputed to stabilize lather, good shaving soap has stable lather from the stearic and palmitic acids, and more than a few percent of castor oil will interfere with the stearic acid lather, most likely by making the bubbles larger.
Again- I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with you on that based on my own formula with 20% castor (and a 50% stearic/palmitic content). It does not produce large bubbles at all in my particular formula, not even with the 10% combo of coconut and PKO in it, which is only there to help jumpstart the lather so that one is not swishing the brush around forever and a day to work up the lather.
Speaking of lather, I
do agree with you that larger bubbles are NOT wanted in shave soap (whew- I was hoping to not come off as a completely disagreeable negative nelly, lol). For what it's worth, my shave croap's lather is quite foamy and dense, like the shaving cream that squirts out of a can- not at all bubbly or quick-dissipating (my foam lasts for over 20 to 30 minutes without deflating).
Easy enough to test, just make a tiny batch (100 gr or so) of each recipe and see which one makes the best shaving lather. I suspect anything over 5% castor oil would make for poor lather.
Maybe so, and maybe not. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, it all depends on the rest of the formula, formula, formula.
Also, something that I learned from my hubby and other wet-shavers is that much depends on one's lathering technique as well. The difference between achieving awesome lather or poor lather from one shave formula to the next (or a good shave from a bad shave) can depend on as little as adding a few more drops of water to the soap/croap when lathering. For example, a few years ago we received a couple of different shave soaps from a fellow soaper for hubby to test out and give feedback. On the first shave with one of them, he absolutely hated it (terrible shaving experience), but not one to give up, he tried it again the next day using a different water amount/lathering technique and it was the like the difference between night and day (i.e., he got an excellent shave with it). He continued using the tweaked technique with it from there on out and got a great, consistent shave with it each time.
IrishLass