Please post Straight Razor Shaving Soap recipes!

All, newbie here. I have a friend that is into making soap, and he wants to have him, and me, and our daughters get together for a 'soap making day'. I'm game...it sounds fun.

I've used several of his soaps, and they're great for bathing but very bad for shaving. I'd like to add a recipe into the day for a shaving soap, specifically one designed for tough bearded men to use with straight razors. I'm currently learning to use a straight, so I have some 'skin in the game' here.

I done a lot of asking around on the straight razor forums, and those men have a strong consensus around several points. Could you all please post some suggested recipes that fall within the guidelines/consensus points below?

1. The universal opinion of the straight razor group is: stay away from anything with olive oil. No 'reason' for this, except that one of the two common denominators that seem to consistently appear in 'soaps that work poorly for straight shavers' is 'olive oil'.
2. No 'mechanical' exfoliatants. Clay quickly dulls the very fragile and difficult to achieve edges on straight razors. Oats/oatmeal, apricot shell, etc, all get trapped between the skin and razor and either inspires one to use too much pressure and cut onself, or leaves patches of whiskers.
3. The lather needs to be dense and fluffy, like merangue pie. Straight shavers will put the soap and some water in a bowl and use a brush to 'whip' the soap into a lather. The lather thus created should 'maintain' itself long enough to get through a shave, rather than whip up nicely and then fall back down as soon as you let it stand for a few second.
4. The lather needs to have a 'slick' quality.
5. The straight razor folks believe they have figured out that 100% sodium hydroxide makes a completely 'hard' soap, and 100% potassium hydroxide makes a totally 'soft' or 'cream' soap. I'd like something just to the hard side of 'in the middle'.

Finally...I don't know if this makes any difference, but I'll want to add a very, very light touch of some combination of sandlewood, cedar, and/or patchouli scent.

My friend is a very competent soap maker, so he can follow any recipe's exactly. I'd ask him this same question and get his suggestions...but he's a very 'color within the lines' kind of guy and is not the one to ask about new things he hasn't thought about.


I'd really appreciate your recipe suggestions!

If you do a search for shaving soap you will find several successful recipes here on the site for it. I have only made shaving soap with KOH. It is soft, but not what I would call "cream soap". Several others have made recipes with mostly KOH and a small amount of NaOH. I have not yet formulated a recipe using both so I can't advise on how to do it. I don't use Olive Oil in mine.

I use a regular multi-blade razor. I use Kaolin or Bentonite clay in my shaving soap. It gives the soap extra slip.
Adding the fragrance won't hurt anything.

I agree, do a search. There had been a lot of discussion about shaving soap on this forum - KOH, NaOH, and in combination. Pages and pages to explore.

Just as a side note, people are proprietary about their recipes that they formulate and you are unlikely to find somebody who is willing to hand theirs over. However, the threads on shaving soap have a lot of information about what does and doesn't work and why.

For what it's worth, my shaving soap does contain some olive oil (which goes against conventional wisdom) but my husband is not a straight edge purist and he prefers a more conditioning soap.

I would start with high castor and high stearic fats and take it from there.

DeeAnna said:

http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=34264

Click to expand...

Thanks!

Skatergirl46 said:

If you do a search for shaving soap you will find several successful recipes here on the site for it. I have only made shaving soap with KOH. It is soft, but not what I would call "cream soap". Several others have made recipes with mostly KOH and a small amount of NaOH. I have not yet formulated a recipe using both so I can't advise on how to do it. I don't use Olive Oil in mine.

I use a regular multi-blade razor. I use Kaolin or Bentonite clay in my shaving soap. It gives the soap extra slip.
Adding the fragrance won't hurt anything.

Click to expand...

When I first did search, before my post, I noted your posts. Virtually all the recipes turned up used bentonite. This isn't a problem with disposable razors, because they are disposable. Straights, however, are not and have their edges destroyed easily by 'particulate'. Resharpening then repolishing is....an investment in time.

What happens to your recipe if the bentonite is left out?

Less slip, I'd imagine. But the lather should still be nice.