I was reading in another forum something like this: potassium/sodium sterate being the same(or getting the same reasults) on soaps like tallow: "Stearate gives same properties to the soap as it was made from a tallow. Note there are pottasium and sodium stearates. When you treat tallow with sodium hydroxide you get sodium stearate and glycerine. Remove the glycerine, and you have a hard soap. When you treat tallow with potassium hydroxide you get potassium stearate which is used mainly in a production of soft soaps. How they got sodium and potassium stearate for their soap - is not really important, maybe from tallow, maybe not. Doesn't make any difference." I find this is really interesting as today I used Massimo Dutti shavestick which contains both sterates and non tallow and yesterday I used IM which contains tallow and got an excellent superb,protective shave from both of those sticks. Also Lea/Bea,La Toja contains those sterates and are really great soaps that can stand in quality with any other tallow soap(other chapter is the scent of the soaps).What are your thoughts or knowledge about it?Thanks!
Ok, let's get down to basics of soap making. I think you are referring to Potassium and Sodium hydroxides. They are both types of caustic lye. Sodium Hydroxides make hard bars of soap. Potassium Hydroxides make liquid soap. A combination of both makes more of a cream soap. I use both when I make my shave creams. Stearic acid is also used in making cream soaps. You can make bar soap or cream soap with Tallow. You do not have to use tallow though, It is just one of the options of oils you can use.
Soaps are a reaction of a fatty acid and NaOH or KOH. The many different fatty acids give the soaps different characteristics. Beef Tallow (which is probably one of the more common tallows used, but the actual source is typically not specified, so it could be sheep or some other meat animal) is comprised of 19% stearic acid, 24% palmitic acid, 43% oleic acid, and the rest is a mix of smaller quantities of other fatty acids. Stearic acid has excellent properties for a shaving soap, particularly making a hard bar with excellent lathering. I wouldn't use particularly high levels of stearic acid, preferring to mix some other things in as well. Tallow has a very nice profile, high in oleic and having plenty of stearic and palmitic. This gives you a hard bar that lathers well, cleanses well, and is not too harsh. (pure stearic or palmitic would be pretty harsh, but pure oleic would be too soft and have poor lather.) The removal of glycerin from the soap during manufacturing has little to do with the hardness of the soap. While a soap with the glycerin removed would indeed be harder, the primary reason for the removal of glycerin is that it has decent value as a byproduct of soapmaking. The inclusion of glycerin in a soap is actually beneficial for lather and skin conditioning properties. The use of sodium versus potassium alkali salts in the making of soap is very simple. As stated above, potassium hydroxide makes a softer soap (tending toward liquid). You will see hard soaps primarily contain sodium soaps and shaving creams will typically be a mix of sodium and potassium. Tallow is not strictly superior for making shaving (or other) soaps. It is associated with quality often because it naturally has a favorable profile for shaving and body soaps. It has the additional benefit of being very cheap as a byproduct of the meat industry. Most inexpensive store bought soaps are primarily tallow based for this very reason. Plant derived oils are perfectly usable for the making of quality soaps as you can mix and match oils to find the fatty acid profile that most suits your purpose.
Ok,so you get the sodium/pottasium sterate by mixing the sodium/pottasium hidroxide with talllow.So are those sterates equivalent to tallow?this is where I am confused about it.
Very good explanation! I do find it a bit humorous that many folks associate "tallow" with quality and superior soaps. Many people think that tallow soaps are the holy grail of shaving soaps. Its also ironic that some folks that love their Penhaligons, Floris, Trumpers, etc tallow soaps shun non tallow soaps and even the lower end tallow based soaps such as Arko and Williams. I believe some folks perceive extinct British tallow soaps as superior? I have a had phenomenal shaves with tallow, clay, glycerine, veggie, etc based soaps. I also laugh when I open another pack of Ivory b/c the first ingredient is tallow of course I honestly dont care if it has sea weed, tree sap, cow fat, or monkey sweat in it. As long as it works who cares!
Well,the same happens to me;I cant get good results from a puck of glycerin based soap with clay and shea butter on it that from a tallow based soap,so sometimes I wonder why all the hype for tallow.Anyway,I bet that is a question of preferences or sometimes,and lets face it,snob-ism.:happy102
Designing a good soap is more complicated than it sounds. I made a soap that contained a good bit of stearic acid and figured it might make a good shaving soap. It was terrible. A bit of castor oil and some clay might make it work, but I haven't had a chance to try it. It may not help that much. It takes a lot of experimentation to get it right. At this point, I'm happy enough to use the bowl of Tabac on my counter when I want to use a soap. And honestly, I wouldn't pick shea butter if I was designing a good shaving soap. Most of the "butters" aren't particularly good for facial use as they can often be comedogenic (meaning they can clog your pores).
Oh,I didnt know that shea butter could be comedogenic.Actually I will stay away from that kind of things like I did when I discovered that L OCITTANNE contains parafinun liquidium(mineral oil) on its formula. Let us know if you get the change to "create" a good shaving soap.I wouldnt mind to be a Guinea pig trying it
Hmm..that's interesting. Institut Karite is one of my favorites and it's known for it's high shea butter content. I haven't had a pore clogging problem, although with a rotation maybe I don't use it enough... but even when I used it all the time (I only had Tabac and IK at the time and needed a break from the Tabac) I didn't have any issues...
Same here. Pre de Provence and Provence Sante are two of my favorites and both contain shea butter. I took Pre de Provence with me when I traveled for more than a month. I used it exclusively with no problems at all.
Sometimes it makes a difference on what other oils the shea butter is used with.as well as the superfat content of the soap. Shea butter by itself can be pore clogging but once it goes through the chemical process of making soap (saponification) some of that issue is resolved. If the soap has a low "superfat" % (amount of oils left after saponification) then you shouldn't have a problem. If it has a higher superfat content then it possibly could cause problems.
MsJoeD,Thanks for the explanation.Do you use shea butter in your soap?and by the way,hows your soap going?I really wanna try it.Hope all is well.
The comedogenic properties don't affect everyone equally and I agree that after saponification it probably loses a lot of the pore clogging nature. Shaving soaps shouldn't have particularly high superfatting, as it reduces lather. Shea butter also has a somewhat high (for an oil) occurrence of adverse reactions, but it's not really very common. (I'd hate to be one of the poor souls who does react though) Shea butter is good stuff, it just requires a bit more care on the part of the formulator. Useless fact: the shea tree is also known as the karite tree.
I agree, that shave soap shouldn't have much superfatting. I go for about a 2% on mine just to make sure I don't end up with a lye heavy soap. I don't use shea butter at all in my shave creams/soaps. but I do have a thin lotion that I use it in for an AS balm for the winter. I do use it in my bath bars for the winter months also. It's a great moisturizer but I never use more than 5% in anything I make.
