Rockclimbers Soap Making Adventure

Discussion in 'Shave Soaps' started by Rockclimber, Oct 1, 2016.

  1. youngunn

    youngunn Where's my TSD aftershave balm???

    Great thread!

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  2. Rockclimber

    Rockclimber Well-Known Member

    Thanks everyone, it's nice to have a website where we can share our thoughts about certain ingredients without overbearing childish rules.

    Today's shave soap is veggie beta 2.1 and the shave was disappointing.
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    Sickness 9.2/10

    Residual sickness 8.8/10

    Cushion 7/10

    Moisturizing 7/10

    Scent 4/10

    Overall 7.9/10

    This soap was made in several stages, stage 1 the primary saponification begins with stearic acid, coconut oil and palm oil.
    Stage 2 is saponification of the 15% butters and with a superfat of 5% many of these butters should remain for cushion and moisturizing but that doesn't seem to be the case this soap.
    Stage 3 is the addition of glycerin which should again help with moisturizing.

    I'll have to shave with a much dryer lather next time to see if gets better but good soap should have a wide water tolerance. This is not good soap, such a pity because its sister veggie 2.0 was.
     
  3. Demidog

    Demidog Well-Known Member

    Really informative and interesting to read as always. That's a surprisingly high score for a "disappointing" shave.

    I'm also really curious about that formula. I've seen you mention in other threads that a high proportion of coconut oil leads to poor soap that dries out the skin. Isn't 25% a very considerable amount of coconut oil though?

    Also seeing glycerin as an additive got me thinking - do glycerin based soaps use a higher proportion of it instead of stearic acid? I have a soap here that appears to use stearic acid as the main ingredient but I also have other veggie soaps that don't use any stearic acid whatsoever, although glycerin is still listed after several other ingredients.
     
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  4. bionut

    bionut New Member

    Moisturizing was a problem in tallow 1.1 too, could it been from the stage cooking?

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  5. Rockclimber

    Rockclimber Well-Known Member

    7.9/10 I would rate as a low score and a disappointing shave since I tailored the soap specifically for what my face prefers. I have noticed that in Veggie soap a large amount of saponified "super fat" ie moisturizing ingredients like shea butter, mango seed butter, avocado oil etc. are really not needed and sometimes actually take away from the shave. My favorite soap PannaCrema Nuavia uses none of these Butters and is fantastic. MdC is also a favorite around here and uses no Butters.

    25% coconut oil is not high for a veggie recipe rather I would call it the average amount. Some soaps go as high as 35 to 40% but I do believe that is far too drying. If I was to reduce the coconut oil I would have to replace it with more stearic acid which is something I've wanted to try for a while but have not gotten around to. I have seen stearic acid recipes in the 70% range and they actually shave worse than this traditional split that I used in Veggie 2.0 and 2.1

    As far as glycerin based soap that is an entire essay in itself so I'll have to save that response for later. Maybe Google melt and pour soap and read for an hour or so and you'll understand the significant difference between glycerin I.E. melt and pour soap and tallow or a veggie soap. It's a fun read and will change the way you look at soaps.


    beta 1.1 was all done in a single stage, I did not get around to multiple stages until the beta 2.0 series.
    I think part of the reason it was not the best shave ever is because I used 25% butter and 40% tallow, that caused a really greasy thick shave. The recipe technically hits 50% stearic acid right on the dot but being the second recipe I ever made was pretty amateurish.
     
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  6. Demidog

    Demidog Well-Known Member

    I'm still experimenting with soaps but I'm trying to stick to only a few at a time so it's going slowly. I started with TTFFCraft and I don't think her recipe contains any of those aforementioned moisturizing ingredients. When I started using Dr. Jon's, the biggest difference that I noticed was the post-shave feel. The soap had removed the oils as expected yet my skin still felt pretty soft and not totally dried out. I assumed that it was the shea butter, which is missing from TTFFCraft. I had also tried Dapper Dragon and Mama Bear, which are excellent soaps, but they also didn't leave my skin with that same post-shave feel that I got from Dr. Jon's.

    The Dapper Dragon is a tallow formula and I didn't notice anything special about it compared to the vegan soaps. After reading this thread, I'm almost sort of tempted to start experimenting myself but I don't think that I want to go down that path. I am having fun reading about your experiments though so I might go ahead and do as you suggested and do that search about melting and pouring soap.
     
  7. Rockclimber

    Rockclimber Well-Known Member

    Beta 1.6 no Menthol this time let's see if everyone in the office says it's as good as it was last time. Everything else is the same except it is no longer a Creed Aventus clone, it's margarita scented. If everyone says it's not their favorite then I know scent plays a more critical role then people would believe.
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    Lots and lots of stearic acid and very little in the way of Butters in this soap. Margarita scented soap is not my favorite by any stretch so that should prove to be a great experiment. I'll let you all know the reaults after a few months of curing when I give it out for Christmas. Fun little psychological experiment.
     
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  8. Rockclimber

    Rockclimber Well-Known Member

    Beta 2.5 Bay Rum
    Gillette adjustable on 3 with feather (4)

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    I shaved with this a few days ago and loved it but did not want to give my review right away. I wanted to get some of the negative reviews out there first for perspective. Today I ran it way too wet, let's see how it shaped up.

    Slickness 9.3/10

    Residual sickness 9/10

    Cushion 8.5/10

    Moisturizing 9.2/10

    Scent 9/10

    Overall 9/10
     
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  9. Straight razor dandy

    Straight razor dandy Stuck cleaning the house himself PERMANENTLY

    I was just curious as to what kind of bay rum scent there is? Clove, vanilla, rum, spice, etc? How strong is the scent room-filling, barely there, dissipating)?
     
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  10. Rockclimber

    Rockclimber Well-Known Member

    9/10 on strength depending on what you're used to. There isn't much stronger that I've come across. My wife thinks that it is obnoxiously strong so there is that... she calls it sex repellent so I don't know. I would say the strength is very similar to splashing your face with Clubman Virgin Island Bay Rum, pretty strong!

    It is a very well-known Bay Rum that is sold online and a ton of soap that you buy online have this exact same scent. I definitely want to get away from this and move on to my own essential oil Bay Rum but this stuff is so good it's going to be very difficult for me to top it.
    I don't know if I can post links directly to commercial websites??
     
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  11. Straight razor dandy

    Straight razor dandy Stuck cleaning the house himself PERMANENTLY

    Pinauds VIBR is one if my favorites, so I am sure I woyld likevut. It sounds great. Apparently, your wife doesnt like bay rum.
     
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  12. Rockclimber

    Rockclimber Well-Known Member

    Top Notes: orange, apple

    Mid Notes: cinnamon, clove, cool mint

    Base Notes: pine, cedarwood, vanilla, musk, patchouli
     
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  13. Straight razor dandy

    Straight razor dandy Stuck cleaning the house himself PERMANENTLY

    Sounds nice to me!
     
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  14. kingfisher

    kingfisher Active Member

    I'm not a fan of bay rum in general. Having said that, I think it's bizzarro that the scent notes for a scent called "bay rum" has no bay and no rum in it. I feel like most bay rum has way too much clove, which I could do without entirely.


    On to another note, the recipe you posted for beta 1.7 looks like a great one; does the lather perform as well as it seems it should, given that set of ingredients?
     
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  15. Rockclimber

    Rockclimber Well-Known Member

    All the 1.7 went to the office staff as a gift and since I only made 5 tins worth I had none left over for me to continue shaving with. I would call it an average tallow shave but I would definitely like to increase stearic acid to 55% and tallow down to 25% with castor oil up to 12% and Shea butter at 8%. Constantly tweaking the recipes.

    I definitely agree that it is odd that the Bay Rum scent has that scent profile but when I really smell it whith that scent triangle next to me I can pick out the orange and apple in the top notes. The clove is strong but not overwhelmingly so. The base notes of pine, cedarwood, vanilla, musk and patchouli are all easily identifiable as well, it is a great Bay Rum Blend. These commercial perfumers are really good at what they do, I really hope one day I can make my own Bay Rum from Essential Oils that rivals this one.
     
  16. dkeester

    dkeester Well-Known Member

    It is nice that you are able to review your own soaps here. The thread over on the other forum was really missing the performance information. The performance reviews are helping me understand why you made some of the tweaks to your recipes and how they worked for you. It gives a much more complete picture. Also, your opinions on the scents which you have used is interesting.

    BTW, I really liked the "Froot Loops" scent that you used in one of the bath soaps. I have heard that Catie's Bubbles uses a similar scent for their "Saturday Morning." I am going to have to pick some of that up.
     
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  17. bionut

    bionut New Member

    I also want to make an EO bay rum blend.
     
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  18. bionut

    bionut New Member

    I don't know how is the Bay Rum Fragrance oil that you are using, as i can't find any in my country, but i made some tests with EO and i found that a proportion of 4:2:1 of Bay, Orange and Clove give a bay rum like scent. I need to get some Lime and Cinnamon oils to put in. I bought Cinnamon EO from a local store but it seems that is Cinnamon leaf essential oil, not the bark that i need.
    Please post any Bay Rum related stuff you try :)

    LE: I was looking at this ingredients list. It looks like the soap has more Castor oil than Coconut oil, and that Sodium Hydroxide is more than the Potassium. Am i reading it right? Also, the lanolin and shea are not saponified, but superfated?

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    Last edited: Oct 25, 2016
  19. kingfisher

    kingfisher Active Member

    Definitely more castor oil than coconut oil, but the list is a bit weird to me. If the second and third ingredients are sodium tallowate and potassium tallowate, and the fourth ingredient is sodium stearate, then the next ingredient on the list should be potassium stearate. Can't really figure how they got to the exact list that the printed.
     
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  20. bionut

    bionut New Member

    Maybe that the ingredients from 4-8 are in the same quantity?
    LE: it can't be as much castor oil as stearic acid...
    How much castor oil did any of you used in a shave soap? I thought that it needs to be used in small quantities to avoid bubbly lather. But if this soap has 10-15% coconut oil then the castor oil is at least 15%. I used max 5%.
     
    Last edited: Oct 25, 2016

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