Good shave soap recipe?

[Zany_in_CO]

What do you line the Pringles can with and can something else be used besides clay to make the soap slippery? I am hearing (reading) that clay dulls the razor blade.

I use 4-ply Mylar because that's what I have on hand. You can use any paper -- freezer paper, parchment, wax paper. The clay works well in this recipe; not so much, I guess, in tallow/stearic acid recipe that's popular on SMF, although I've never tried that one.

 

[Obsidian]

What do you line the Pringles can with and can something else be used besides clay to make the soap slippery? I am hearing (reading) that clay dulls the razor blade.

A properly made shave soap will be plenty slick without clay. Thats why a holy grail shave recipe us so sought after.

 

[KiwiMoose]

So - is it really a likelihood that a volcano can occur when using dual lye? I had never been told of this before.

 

[user 49910]

A properly made shave soap will be plenty slick without clay. Thats why a holy grail shave recipe us so sought after.

That is a matter of personal opinion. I use Kaolin clay in my dual lye stearic acid shave soap and have no issues with it at all. But then again 3 teaspoons in a 3 lb batch is quite insignificant. My blades last for over 5 shaves which is quite good regardless or whether there is clay in the soap or not.

So - is it really a likelihood that a volcano can occur when using dual lye? I had never been told of this before.

A volcano may occur if the oils and lye are too hot... usually it happens when adding the lye solution too quickly. One needs to constantly stir the oils whilst adding the lye solution to them. My second batch of dual lye and nearly had a volcano but stirred it down quickly enough to prevent an overflow.

 

[Becky1024]

What do you line the Pringles can with and can something else be used besides clay to make the soap slippery? I am hearing (reading) that clay dulls the razor blade.

Tallow gives a nice glide.

 

[MelTenn]

Tallow gives a nice glide.

Thank you