Shaving soap help

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SubLowe

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Hey ladies and gents. i am getting ready to make my 1st shaving soap but am unsure of which clay to use and how much. I have bentonite and white kaoiln clay . i want to try to make shaving soaps using both of them to see the difference. But i am not sure how much clay i would use ? i will be making a bout a 1.5 lb batch. also what else can i add to the soap to give it more healing properties if its used for shaving. like vitamin e oil or anything? any suggestions are very very appreciated.
thank you ! - Mirka
 
From my experience, they both make lovely soaps. Id start with <1tbsp ppo and see how you like that. anything you add can give you different qualities, so id start with the clays and see how you like them and then take it from there.

I just checked out your fb page and website. nice farm. just a side note though, i noticed you have a page for your soaps. i think i also remember seeing that you made your first soap about a month ago. you might want to hold off selling until you are more familiar with this, imo.
 
whs said:
From my experience, they both make lovely soaps. Id start with <1tbsp ppo and see how you like that. anything you add can give you different qualities, so id start with the clays and see how you like them and then take it from there.
Click to expand...

I agree with this.

As for "healing" properties, I guess aloe would be good. But keep in mind that in the U.S. you can not legally make any claims about healing if you plan to sell :)
 
I just made a huge mistake the other day with my shaving soap. I grabbed rhassoul instead of bentonite. Rhassoul is scrubby. bentonite is slippery. I've used kaolins, while not as slippery as bentonite, they are themselves not heavy or coarse clays and are not scrubby. I made a pink shave bar that was more pink and red kaolin than it was bentonite and I don't notice much of a difference. The useage rate is about 2tsp per pound.

To make your shaving soap better for the skin, you can do any number of things, for example
use beer as lye water
use aloe vera juice as lye water
aloe vera extract
Add glycerin (this will also make the lather more stable). Most people use about 10% additional glycerin for shave soaps.
coconut milk added to lye water


I add just a tad of tea tree to my shave bar. It adds some freshness but you can't really tell what it is. Also its an aniseptic and if put on cuts or broken skin, the skin will heal faster without a post mark. I thought it would be good for shaving soap.

Some other things to keep in mind for shaving soap:
Steric and ricnoceic give creamy lather. The only source of ricnoleic is castor oil. To get a lather thats dense like a shave foam you'd aim for very high creaminess and low for bubbly. ITs common for a shave recipe to be 20% or more castor oil.
 
Genny said:
whs said:
From my experience, they both make lovely soaps. Id start with <1tbsp ppo and see how you like that. anything you add can give you different qualities, so id start with the clays and see how you like them and then take it from there.
Click to expand...

I agree with this.

As for "healing" properties, I guess aloe would be good. But keep in mind that in the U.S. you can not legally make any claims about healing if you plan to sell :)
Click to expand...

yes of course. i woudlnt advertise it as healing soap lol .. just wanted to put something in there that would be nourishing and healing on fresh razored legs. i usually do a honey almond sugar scrub before shaving and my legs feel super soft and never any bumps .. thats kinda what i meant.
 
whs said:
I just checked out your fb page and website. nice farm. just a side note though, i noticed you have a page for your soaps. i think i also remember seeing that you made your first soap about a month ago. you might want to hold off selling until you are more familiar with this, imo.
Click to expand...


well i dont plan on selling most of the soap i have made so far to our customers. majority of the soaps are going to friends and family. and ive read 2 books on soapmaking and researched so much my head hurt. i understand the chemistry of soapmaking. i think i have a pretty good understand of how to make soap, just dont have the hands on experience. do calculations on paper and then with soapcalc. i will be the test bunny first of course and everyone knows i just started making soap.
 
sudbubblez said:
I just made a huge mistake the other day with my shaving soap. I grabbed rhassoul instead of bentonite. Rhassoul is scrubby. bentonite is slippery. I've used kaolins, while not as slippery as bentonite, they are themselves not heavy or coarse clays and are not scrubby. I made a pink shave bar that was more pink and red kaolin than it was bentonite and I don't notice much of a difference. The useage rate is about 2tsp per pound.

To make your shaving soap better for the skin, you can do any number of things, for example
use beer as lye water
use aloe vera juice as lye water
aloe vera extract
Add glycerin (this will also make the lather more stable). Most people use about 10% additional glycerin for shave soaps.
coconut milk added to lye water


I add just a tad of tea tree to my shave bar. It adds some freshness but you can't really tell what it is. Also its an aniseptic and if put on cuts or broken skin, the skin will heal faster without a post mark. I thought it would be good for shaving soap.

Some other things to keep in mind for shaving soap:
Steric and ricnoceic give creamy lather. The only source of ricnoleic is castor oil. To get a lather thats dense like a shave foam you'd aim for very high creaminess and low for bubbly. ITs common for a shave recipe to be 20% or more castor oil.
Click to expand...

i was actually going to make it with 1/2 coconut milk, 1/2 water and was going to put tea tree oil and lemon grass EO in it. thank you so much for all the info! i really need to get my hands on glycerin.
 
You can usually find vegetable glycerin in health-food stores or large chain natural-type stores such as WholeFoods and Sprouts. I buy mine from my local, family-owned health food store. I add 10% ppo to my shave soap (stickblended into my oils).

Different clays have different drawing properties (i.e., some are better for oily skin and some are better for dry skin). I add kaolin clay to my shave soap (@ 1 tbsp ppo) because it provides nice slip without being as drying to me as bentonite.

Some other things to keep in mind for shaving soap:
Steric and ricnoceic give creamy lather. The only source of ricnoleic is castor oil. To get a lather thats dense like a shave foam you'd aim for very high creaminess and low for bubbly. ITs common for a shave recipe to be 20% or more castor oil.
Click to expand...

100% Agreed. :) My shave soap has a total of 20% natural stearic from the combined oils, fats and butters in my formula to produce hardness, stablility, and creaminess. I also like to add milk as my liquid to increase my creamy lather factor.


IrishLass :)
 
IrishLass said:
You can usually find vegetable glycerin in health-food stores or large chain natural-type stores such as WholeFoods and Sprouts. I buy mine from my local, family-owned health food store. I add 10% ppo to my shave soap (stickblended into my oils).

Different clays have different drawing properties (i.e., some are better for oily skin and some are better for dry skin). I add kaolin clay to my shave soap (@ 1 tbsp ppo) because it provides nice slip without being as drying to me as bentonite.

Some other things to keep in mind for shaving soap:
Steric and ricnoceic give creamy lather. The only source of ricnoleic is castor oil. To get a lather thats dense like a shave foam you'd aim for very high creaminess and low for bubbly. ITs common for a shave recipe to be 20% or more castor oil.
Click to expand...

100% Agreed. :) My shave soap has a total of 20% natural stearic from the combined oils, fats and butters in my formula to produce hardness, stablility, and creaminess. I also like to add milk as my liquid to increase my creamy lather factor.


IrishLass :)
Click to expand...

i am going to go out and see if i can find glycerin locally :) after putting in my numbers in soapcalc my harness appears to be a bit low. its at 37 on the 29-54 range? how can i bring this up without compromising the other properties. ive been playing with this for about an hour now and my head is starting to hurt lol ... ive read one can add 1/2 teaspoon of salt ppo before adding lye to the water and it will make a harder bar. have you tried this before? do you actually put 20% of castor in with your oils? and i was going to use kaolin instead of bentonite as well. my skin is dry as it is, i think it would work better for me.
 
you can buy glycerin at walmart, in the pharmacy section. salt will add to hardness but it also decreases lather.
 
water discounting will also give harder bars initially, although some oils, like Palm are a little more alkaline when made with a water discount. Its still in the safe range though.
 

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