KOH and NaOH in shaving soap - revisited.

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fatfacedcharlie

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My first batch of shaving soap was quite poor really, not enough creamy lather, and what little there was disapeared after two and a half seconds. So I went back to the drawing board, looked at the ingredients of some top notch shaving soaps and decided I'd try to copy them as best I could. What I ended up with was a recipe which was mainly tallow and stearic acid, with a fair amount of shea butter and a dollop of coconut oil. As for the lye I ended up with NaOH and KOH in a 60:40 split. After mixing the lye mixture with the oils I chucked the whole lot in the oven at 80 c (175 f) for an hour and a bit, stirring every 20 mins or so until it was at a ph of about 7.5. At that point I added 10% glycerin and a bit of extra shea butter as superfat. The problem came when getting it into the mould. It was THICK, it set quite hard but its quite crumbly because it was settng in the mould as I was spooning it in. The lather is pretty good if I say so myself, looks like it should give a pretty good shave when I get round to trying it.

I just don't like the way it looks, I was poking around the web looking for soapy things the other day, and I came across a you tube video about making melt and pour base, and one of the ingredients was propylene glycol. It was being used as a solvent for the soap and smoothed out the HP mix quite nicely. Does any one know what sort of effect that would have on the lather?

Any thoughts would be appreciated
 
Propylene Glycol can be a skin irritant. You're better off using Sodium Lactate as it will smooth out HP nicely and make sure you are using full water since you are cooking it down....
 
I did make a HP with the propylene glycol, lots of bubbles and lather. It was a bit drying and melted away faster than by normal bars. I doubt I will be making more of it unless someone asks for it. I do want to make some shaving soap. I think a very creamy low strong lather rather than lots of fluffy bubbles would be best for shaving, something that would coat the skin with a creamy base and let the blade skim along.
 
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