Shaving Soap - Problem With my First Batch

[homesteaders]

Hi. I've been doing HP soaps for years, but this was my first try with a shaving soap recipe. This one is supposed to be pourable. Sounded appealing! I used the tutorial found here: https://www.modernsoapmaking.com/tutorial-shaving-soap-recipe/ and thought I made it exactly according to the recipe, but I clearly did something wrong. After pouring the lye water into the oils, it quickly turned into something like mashed potatoes, and then to a beautiful whipped cream, and then settled down. I put the lid on, as instructed, and checked it in 30 minutes. The top still looked smooth, but when I tried to stir, it was a solid mass, similar to play dough. The temperature was only 136 (F).

I turned the heat to high for about half an hour, but that made no difference. I finally tried adding the sodium lactate, additional oil and the silk amino acids. It helped to loosen it up a little, but not much. I decided not to use any EO's since it didn't seem to be working whatsoever.

What did I do wrong? The recipe didn't specify temperatures for the oils or the lye. I usually soap cool (for hp) at around 145 - 155 F to avoid volcanoes. The lye solution was only around 120 F when I added it. I wasn't thinking about all that stearic acid, so my guess is that the temperatures were way too cool to melt it fully. ???

Here's the recipe:

10.8 oz. stearic acid (45% of oils)
5.8 oz. coconut oil (24% of oils)
3.4 oz. olive oil ( 14% of oils)
2.4 oz hemp seed oil (10% of oils)
1.7 oz. castor oil (7% of oils)
2.78 oz KOH (5% superfat)
1.67 oz. NaOH (5% superfat)
23.36 oz. distilled water (16% lye solution)

Additives:
1 oz. additional oil
1 oz. sodium lactate
0.5 oz silk amino acids
0.5 oz. vitamin E
Colorants and EO's (I didn't add them because I thought it would be a waste since the soap was so stiff and lumpy)

I did a zap test, which was fine.

Is this recipe worth trying again, only at a higher temperature? Make other changes??? She says it is pourable, but this was a mess. It has been a week, and the "dough" is still soft like play dough. It is very slippery, though. I put some in a jar and my husband loves shaving with it, even though it doesn't make that nice, lasting lather. Gives him a nice, smooth shave and his face feels wonderful.

 

[SudsanSoaps]

Sounds like it turned out about right. Higher temp and more water will make it a little more workable. Basically the only way to soap with that high of % stearic acid is hot process. I personally would go with a lower SF but that's all opinion. Do you have a shave brush? You don't mention one and this type of soap will require a brush to get a good lather.

 

[homesteaders]

Thank you for the reply. The recipe says it is pourable, but this was/is so lumpy and thick that it would not have been possible to evenly distribute the essential oils. The consistency hasn't changed much since I made it. My husband does use a nice badger brush for shaving. He can get enough of a lather on the brush to rub it on his face, but no more than a regular bar of soap -- except that this does have better slip. It needs to at least be soft enough to stir in the additives. I did soap in a crock pot at my normal hot process temperatures, but I wonder if I should have started with the oils around 180, and the lye around 150??? Would that have made any difference?

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

It can be fight to work the additives in, which is why I add my superfat, glycerine, and scents at the end of the process. Even then, it can be a good workout mixing it through.

With that sort of soap, if he face lathers, he'll have to work up a protolather on the soap itself and then build it up on the face.

 

[amd]

When I make my shaving soap, I melt the stearic acid separate from the other oils and add the lye to those, bring to trace and then add stearic acid. So for simplicity sake: if i were making a shave soap with stearic acid, coconut oil, and olive oil, it would look like this:
1. Heat/melt coconut oil and olive oil in crock pot.
2. Melt stearic acid in separate container and set aside (keep on heat if it is too cool in your room).
3. Mix lye solution.
4. Add lye solution to oils in crockpot and SB to trace.
5. Add melted stearic acid and SB as much as possible (it gets mashed potato-ey very quickly) and continue stirring with a spoon until I feel satisfied that it is well mixed in.

 

[Saranac]

I can't help with your existing recipe (I've never used stearic), but if you want a high-stearic shave soap that is pourable, try using hydrogenated soybean oil (soy wax). Unlike stearic acid, soy wax is a triglyceride, and it doesn't reactive so quickly with the lye solution. I'm able to soap my ~60% soy wax shave soap at about 125-130F and easily pour it into a PVC pipe mold. It does get quite hot in the mold, and my formula always gels with little to no extra insulation.

Soy wax works great as a 1:1 swap with stearic, but you'll have to re-run the recipe through a soap calc.

 

[dixiedragon]

Sodium lactate might help make it smoother/more pourable. It also might be helpful to mix your essential oils with something such as water, a bit of oil or glycerin, then blend that into the soap.

 

[homesteaders]

Thank you all so much for the replies!!! I think I'll give this recipe one more try before giving up on it, only I'll cook it hotter, and make a smaller batch, and add the SA after trace. I'll still add sodium lactate and other additives after the cook, as before. I love sodium lactate in hp soap when I want to work with it a bit for different colors, swirls, etc. If I can get this recipe to work, even if it isn't as pourable as the recipe says, then there are a few tweaks I'd like to make later. But, I'll do that once I have a better understanding of how the ingredients affect a shave soap. 25 years of hp soap, but stearic acid changes everything! I will likely try the soy wax, Saranac, if I can't get this one pourable.

Thanks again for all the tips and comments!

 

[IrishLass]

I make mine in a similar manner as amd in post #5. Works like a charm.

The first thing I do is melt my stearic acid in a stainless steel container in a 250F oven. When it's completely melted I turn the oven down to 180F and let it sit in there until needed.

In the meantime, I prepare my KOH and NaOH solutions and combine them into a single container, and then I add my sodium lactate solution to it/them and set aside.

Next I heat my hard fats in my stainless soaping pot on medium-low directly on my stove-top burner, then I add in my liquid oils along with my glycerin to them and bring the overall temp up to 200 degreesF.

Then I add my melted stearic acid and stir with a whisk until smooth (my soap-pot is still on the burner, btw).

Once smooth, I then whisk in my combined lyes/sodium lactate (slowly). If things grain up at all, I just keep whisking on the heat until it smoothes out/comes together (which it always does). Once all is nice and smooth and thick/pudding-like, I cover my pot and place it in the oven to HP it, turning the oven temp down to 180F for the cook.

Once in the oven, I check it about every 30 minutes and give things a stir. Usually takes about 1 to 1.5 hours to reach zaplessness.


IrishLass

 

[homesteaders]

Thank you, IrishLass!!! When you finish the cook and add fragrance or other additives, is it sort of a dough / mashed potatoes that you spoon into your mold, or is it pourable?

Now, I said I would not tweak anything until I understand how ingredients affect shaving soaps, but I've been doing more reading here. I think the olive oil should go. How about if I change the recipe to decrease coconut oil, increase castor oil, omit the hemp seed oil, and use a bunch of tallow. I have a boatload of tallow that I rendered last fall when a friend butchered a cow. My recipe might look something like:
45% stearic acid
10% coconut oil
20% castor oil
25% tallow
plus some glycerine and sodium lactate. Would this be sticky with that much castor oil? I thought I remembered you, IL saying that 20% castor oil works with a low (10%) coconut oil. ???? I like your oven method! Crock pots are so heavy to work with at the end.
Edited to add that I will run any changes through a soap calculator.

 

[IrishLass]

Mine is actually nicely fluid/pourable by the time it's zap-free/when I add my FO, etc... For what its worth, I use a 26.4% lye concentration for both lyes (I use 80% KOH and 20% NaOH), which helps. That, plus my addition of 20% glycerin and sodium lactate also help to keep things nicely fluid.

Your revamped recipe looks good to me. I use 20% castor in mine, plus 28% stearic acid, a 32% combo of tallow and high-stearic butters such as illipe and kokum, 10% coconut and 10% olive or avocado and my hubby loves it.


IrishLass

 

[homesteaders]

Thank you for the great tips! I will give it a go in the morning. Can hardly wait!