Shaving soap recipe feedback

[kerzuke]

I tried to make recipe so that i would not have to add stearic acid, but only with oils and butters i havent managed yet to reach stearic acid % to 20. Can anyone suggest which butters and oils to use to increase stearic acid? when i added tallow instead lard, it increases, but i dont have tallow. I only have lard and palm oil.

Thanks!

 

[tlm884]

Mango, shea, cocao all increase stearic

 

[IrishLass]

Kokum and Illipe butter will get you way up there, too.

IrishLass

 

[kerzuke]

Well, i tried different forumals in soapcalc.net and now i manage to raise stearic acid % to 19, but for this i still had to add stearic acid 2% (but i think thats still better than 7%, or what do you think?)

Thank you all for yout help!

Tomorrow i am gonna try this recipe

 

[IrishLass]

Go for it, and let us know how it turns out!

IrishLass

 

[kerzuke]

Well i finally tried this soap and that wasnt as good as my first one. I didint mentioned that i have done one shaving soap but the stearic acid level were not so high as the second soap i tried now so i thought the second would be better. But still the first soap's lather is much more thicker and stays longer. I think that im gonna stay with the first recipe, althought it was a little trickier, because it has 5% of stearic acid in it and it was hard to put in the molds.

 

[IrishLass]

To make your first shaving recipe less trickier to mold, try soaping it warmer.

IrishLass

 

[kerzuke]

To make your first shaving recipe less trickier to mold, try soaping it warmer.

IrishLass

I thought that soaping in room temperature is better. But im gonna try soap warmer, thanks for your advice!

 

[IrishLass]

Room temp is great for most soaps, but when soaping with a high proportion of fats that contain a high amount of stearic acid in them, soaping at room temp can actually backfire on you by causing what is known as 'pseudo trace'. Its name is pretty self explanatory- it's not a true trace where true saponification is going on and being accelerated- but it still has the look and feel of a real, honest-to-goodness, bonafide trace. What's really happening, though, is that the temp of the batter has fallen too low for the harder-to-melt stearic acid to be able to stay in fluid suspension, and it is now resolidifying or precipitaing out of the mix before the lye has a chance of fully reacting with it to saponify it properly. The results are that your finished soap will display varying sizes of white globs, or spots, or specks throughout the bars, which are known as 'stearic spots'. To avoid pseudo trace and the resulting stearic spots, I've found that it is best to soap on the warmer side. For me, that's at least 120 degreesF.

IrishLass