What are you talking about? The term "glycerin soaps" the way it is usually used on shave forums refers to "melt-and-pour" soaps. These are made in bulk by big manufacturers and then sold in quantity to people who add scents and sometimes other ingredients and then sell them. No tallow is used in the making of the base soap and no tallow or tallow products are added by the soapers who sell these soaps.
I was referring to small batch glycerin soaps made at home as they have been for years. Bacon fat, lard or in the case of the movie "Fight Club," human fat, are combined with Lye (powder form of NaOH,) along with essential oils for fragrance to render the final soap. Glycerine is formed during the combination along with a wee bit of nitroglycerin, contrary to what the movie insinuates which evaporates off. Again these homemade soaps used for almost everything, depending upon what extras are added have been used for over hundreds of years. I wasn't referring to mass marketed glycerine soaps that can be found at almost any superstore. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Sorry, but you are incorrect again. Small batch soaps made at home using lard or any kind of fat or tallow reacted with either KOH or NaOH are not glycerin soaps. They are tallow soaps. Glycerin is definitely naturally formed as a byproduct of the saponification reaction, but that does not make them "glycerin soaps." They are still tallow soaps.
I had done some reasearch previously about making a glycerine soap base and I don't think he is incorrect: http://www.diynatural.com/how-to-make-glycerin-soap-base-recipe/ And
I am going to side with @kingfisher on this one. @champagneinhand is _technically_ correct that all soap that was not produced using synthetic detergents contains glycerin, however not all soap produced this way is called "glycerin soap" by tradition. When soapmakers (and shavers on forums like TSD) use the term "glycerin soap" they mean specifically soaps that use a transparent glycerin soap base, like the recipe that @Linuxguile posted. If the soapmaker has taken the extra steps to make the soap transparent, then it is called "glycerin soap." Go to Whole Foods, or some other high-end store where they sell multiple different types of natural bath soaps and you will find that the ones marked as "glycerin soap" are the transparent ones even though the rest of the soaps on the shelf will also contain glycerin. http://candleandsoap.about.com/od/soapglossary/g/glglycerinsoap.htm
Now... to get this thread back on track... @Rockclimber, can you describe the scent profile of the Holy Black Gunpowder Spice? I am trying to imagine the Old Spice + black powder combination and failing.
I think that it's also worth noting that glycerin can be derived from multiple sources. It can be synthetic, derived from plants, or derived from animal fat/tallow. I use Mama Bear's glycerin soaps, which don't use any animal byproducts. Her glycerin soaps are plant based.
this person is removing the actual soap (the saponified tallow) using 70% alcohol and then adding a heated sugar-water mixture. What they end up with probably is a form of "glycerin soap" but it's still not exactly the same as what is being sold and used as a base for shaving soaps, almost all of which contain foaming agents/detergents. I stand by my original statement that, in general, people who make soaps at home by saponifying oils with lye generally stop there and make traditional tallow soap, rather than doing these extra steps just to make the soap clear. To me, what that person ends up making is still not really "soap" in the traditional sense, as the word soap implies saponified oils, not ethanol extracted glycerin with sugar water added.
Smells like a stronger version of Old Spice and barber shop. I reload and know the smell of gunpowder very well but don't pick up the traits of ball or extruded powder in this soap which is a good thing because gunpowder is very strong and chemical smelling like nitrogen fertilizer.
Well, I will just say then that the clear soaps pretty much suck. I prefer the tallowed ones that are quite opaque. That clear stuff is for prettiness not for working the razor. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Thanks. It is probably a good thing that there isn't much of a powder smell to the soap. That would be odd. Although I admit that I do want to pick up the Hoppes 9 scented soap and AS from Phoenix Artisan Accouterments.
Ben a.k.a. rock climber (the guy that started this thread) had some personal things come up and is taking a break from shaving forums. I will just leave it at that.
