Shaving soap recipe

[Zach]

I haven't made soap before, but I enjoy DIY projects After reading a fair amount of info on shave soap specifically as well as general soap making, I've come here to get feedback on a hypothetical recipe.

I'd like to know if there are any glaring errors in formulation, if you've tried anything similar, if this is way too ambitious to start out with, and if there are any recommendations on things to add, subtract, or sub out. Any thoughts as to what outcome I might expect would be appreciated.

Recipe as follows:
375g beef tallow for stearic acid content/creamy, stable lather
50g coconut oil to increase lather volume, hopefully not so much of it that it would be too harsh for intended purpose
50g castor oil to increase lather volume/stability
25g Shea butter for conditioning
10g jojoba oil, added at trace
60/40 Koh/Naoh

This is would be 510g
~75% tallow, 10% co, 10% castor, 5% Shea, 2% jojoba
Lye calculated without the jojoba at 0% superfat, with jojoba added at trace to ensure use of all lye and add superfat at ~2%.

The reason for this process idea is to fully saponify my other oils and use a more shelf-stable oil as superfat. Jojoba doesn't lather well, but is very stable and great for skin.
Since this uses tallow, my thought is that hot processing is best.

Thoughts? TIA

 

[lsg]

Your percentages add up to 102% For just starting out you might want to do a simple 4-oil recipe, such as coconut 22%, tallow-40%, olive oil-30% and Castor oil-8%. I would not use expensive butters for the first several batches and keep your batches small so that a mistake won't end up so expensive. Use a lye calculator such as Soaper's Friend or SoapCalc. Good luck on your soaping journey.

 

[Dahila]

Adding jojoba oil on trace does not superfat it will be eaten by lye monster like any other oil.

 

[Zach]

@lsg Thanks for the reply! It comes to 102% because I planned to calculate for the base oils and experiment with adding oils as superfat (jojoba) without having to recalulate lye. It's also simpler to weigh out in 5g increments.

So, running 500g (75%tallow, 10%castor, 10%coconut, 5%shea) through soapcalc with NaOH and multiplying by 0.4, and then running with 90%KOH and multiplying by 0.6, gave 28.9g NaOH and 67.584g KOH.

@Dahila Do you know if anyone successfully adds oil after the cook? My assumption is that at that point there is a significantly lower amount of lye. Obviously, you'd have to be able to mix very thoroughly to have a consistent final product.

 

[KiwiMoose]

Hi Zach,

I plan to try a shave soap soon too. I was thinking I might use Aloe vera juice as the full water content, because I'v e used it recently in body soap and it makes a lovely creamy rich lather.

 

[Dahila]

HP people add the oil but after cook. Are you making hp soap? If yes you can , but at trace lye will consume it. I used Aloe vera in soap and it is pretty lovely.