My first shaving soap is a success!

[FlybyStardancer]

I wouldn't bother rebatching. It'll probably look worse if you rebatch. Undercooked HP isn't really a problem with a standard cure time. It's just somewhere in between CP and HP.

 

[DeeAnna]

^^^ what FlyBy said. IMO, soda ash is not an issue that warrants rebatching. I only cook this recipe somewhere between 15 and 30 minutes and it's fine.

 

[Lin]

Ditto to the above comments. What about the soda ash makes you want to rebatch? If its appearance you'll end up worse after rebatching.

 

[Lindy]

Hi everyone,

I am pondering whether I want to use a combo of KOH/NaOH or just use KOH and add sodium lactate to get my desired shave soap hardness. If I use KOH only and add Sodium Lactate at 3-5%, will my soap get as hard as a 60/40 or 70/30 of a KOH/NaOH combo? Just curious before I go and buy supplies.

Thanks for any help!


Kyle

Hi Kyle,

It won't get as hard as if you used the combination.

 

[ocean_soul]

Thanks FlybyStardancer (I love your Jazz icon!), DeeAnna and Lin for the feedback. It's not that I think the appearance of soda ash ruins the soap...it's just that I've never had soda ash form on a HP soap before, makes me worried I did it wrong, is all. But I'll just leave it as it is and give it some extra cure time.

 

[kanutta]

I'm so thrilled to find this tread! My son is a passionate wet shaver and spends a lot of money on shaving soaps, creams and what have you. I have been soaping for a year, mostly HP, but couldn't make shaving soaps as it is impossible to get KOH in small quantities in Norway. NAOH on the other hand you can buy everuwhere. But, I was in Barcelona some weeks ago, and ran into a chemist shop so I finally got a couple of pounds! Thank you everyone that has contributed to this thread. Good shaving soaps recipes, well any cream soaps recipes, are hard to find. It was fun to see the Fitjar brand mentioned in this tread, by Mark the Box guy. It's Norwegian, and I was suprised that anyone had heard of it outside Norway. I'm planning on packaging this soap in a glass bail jar, will that be ok? I don't want to waste the expensive e.o.'s or f.oils, they will disappear if not covered.

 

[songwind]

Make sure it's a low, wide jar and you should be fine. Narrower jars get obnoxious when loading the brush.

And Fitjar is fairly well regarded on the forums.

 

[Lindy]

Agreed Fitjar is a well known and well respected shave soap.

 

[kanutta]

I made the soap today, will let it sit until tomorrow before I test it. I'm not sure which strength of KOH I got, it doesn't say, but it seems like the flakes for soapers are only 90 % pure KOH. I didn't take the chance so I calculated with 100% pure KOH to avoid a harsh and lye heavy soap. I see that the orignal recipe is calculated with 100 % pure KOH and superfatted 5 %. But it might in fact be superfatted more than that if we all have 90 % pure KOH? I got confused when I saw that Soapcalc has a choice for 90 % KOH. More superfat usually means less foam and bubbles, so I would like to get it right

 

[FlybyStardancer]

KOH flakes are 90% pure. It's pretty much impossible to get KOH to 100% purity.

It was added because of LS-makers' complaints that SoapCalc's formula didn't take into account the impurities in lye. I agree, it's confusing having two options there.

 

[kanutta]

Ok, thank you. Then the original recipe has around 15 % superfat, which is not a bad thing if the soap lathers well. It's kinder to skin. I will try to formulate with 8 % superfat and see how that lathers up.

 

[DeeAnna]

I don't figure my recipes assuming KOH is 100% pure. My supplier's analysis is 92% purity, so that's the number I'm using along with 5% superfat. I don't agree with 15% superfat, intentional or otherwise. A high superfat cuts the lather, softens the soap (and that is already a concern with this recipe), and may be a trigger for rancidity.

 

[songwind]

At the time that I made my first soap I didn't know about the purity issue. Having bought my KOH second hand, it didn't include the numbers, either.

By the time I knew about it, I had already made the soap, liked the performance, and didn't mess with it afterward.

Just did the math, and I think my current formulation ends up about 10% superfat.

 

[DeeAnna]

That's fair reasoning, Songwind, and I don't mean to downplay the success of a recipe that is working well for you. I just didn't want people reading this thread to assume that everyone is using a high superfat.

 

[songwind]

That's fair reasoning, Songwind, and I don't mean to downplay the success of a recipe that is working well for you. I just didn't want people reading this thread to assume that everyone is using a high superfat.

I agree totally. That's also why I wanted to put the story of how it ended up that high out there.

Once I started added NaOH and the superfat went down, the performance increased - so I think that high superfat was inhibiting the lather a bit.

 

[kanutta]

Thank you all for the clarification, I really appreciate it. I have a limitied quantity of KOH to play with, and I can't travel to Barcelona that often to get it That would be some expensive shaving soap! I have another batch cooking right now, better go watch it. It will be a nice surprise for my son who long wanted me to make some for him !

 

[Nikkor]

Another way to figure the lye is to use your favorite soap recipe calculator. Calculate the exact same soap recipe twice, but use NaOH as the lye for the first version and KOH as the lye for the second version.

For the first version, the recipe calculator will tell you how much NaOH that you would need to use if you wanted NaOH as ALL of the lye. In the second version, it will tell you how much KOH you would need to use if KOH was ALL of the lye.

Since you want a mixture of 15% NaOH and 85% KOH for the recipe, multiply the NaOH weight times 0.15. And multiply the KOH weight times 0.85. That will give you the correct weights of each lye to mix together to make the recipe with 15% NaOH and 85% KOH.

Hope this helps.

I think I understand how to calculate the lye (NaOH & KOH) mixture but I have a couple of questions.

One concerns the amount of water to use. For the sake of easy math I'll just use these numbers as an example;
If at 15% NaOH the recipe called for 10g and I wanted to use a 1 to 3 lye/water ratio I would use 30g water? For the KOH at 85% and the recipe called for 70g and using the same 1-3 lye/water ratio I would use 210g water? So the total water would be 240g? Remember this is a hypothetical example of measures.

My next question is do I mix both NaOH and KOH at the same time in the total amount of water? In my above example it would be adding 80g of the lye blend to 240g of water. Is this correct?

I'm not yet ready to try this recipe but I am a shaver that uses shave creams/soaps and a DE razor. I still have a number of creams and a puck or two that I have purchased to use up. At some point I would like to try to make my own but I'm nowhere near ready, just trying to wrap my head around this whole thing.

 

[FlybyStardancer]

From the instructions I've seen, you dissolve the NaOH first, and once that's dissolved (doesn't have to be clear, just no more grains/flakes), that's when you add the KOH.

 

[songwind]

I think I understand how to calculate the lye (NaOH & KOH) mixture but I have a couple of questions.

One concerns the amount of water to use. For the sake of easy math I'll just use these numbers as an example;
If at 15% NaOH the recipe called for 10g and I wanted to use a 1 to 3 lye/water ratio I would use 30g water? For the KOH at 85% and the recipe called for 70g and using the same 1-3 lye/water ratio I would use 210g water? So the total water would be 240g? Remember this is a hypothetical example of measures.

My next question is do I mix both NaOH and KOH at the same time in the total amount of water? In my above example it would be adding 80g of the lye blend to 240g of water. Is this correct?

Your water example looks right to me. My lye measuring vessel isn't big enough to hold both types, so I measure separately, but I pour both into the water then stir until dissolved. There's no need to dissolve them separately.

 

[Nikkor]

Your water example looks right to me. My lye measuring vessel isn't big enough to hold both types, so I measure separately, but I pour both into the water then stir until dissolved. There's no need to dissolve them separately.

Thank you for the clarification songwind! Good to know I'm on the right track.