Let me know if I got this right or not. I find soaps can be very confusing and I don't always know what my shave soap is. For the most part, it doesn't matter. It either works for me or it doesn't when I shave but I like to know what I put on my skin at times. If you're not sure, you can always ask a soap maker what the soap base is and process. Always a good idea to know if a scent is Fragrance Oil or Essential Oil too. Hot Process Soap (HP): Adding an additional heat source to shorten the cure time on soaps. Cold Process Soap (CP): Relies on the release of heat from lye to make the soap. Needs 3-6 weeks of cure time. Melt & Pour Soap (M&P): Ready made soap. Just remelt and add scents or other ingredients and pour into molds. Glycerin based. Milled Soaps: Single or Triple Milled just means how many times it went through the roller process. Glycerin is extracted from the soap and the resulting dense soap is powdered, put into a hopper with scents and colorants and rolled between steel rollers. It's then pressure extruded into molds and set to cure. Lasts a long time but the glycerin is missing. Soap Bases: Glycerin Tallow (Animal Fat) Vegetable Fat (Olive Oil) Lanolin Milk (Goat, Cow, etc) in Lye Solution
There's one more type of soap: pseudo-soap. Soap that's not really soap, relying on SLS to create lather. The Wilky-bowl(s) spring to my mind.
I just wanted to add a few things to this. There is another method called CPOP where you pour a CP soap in the mold and put in the oven at a low temp to speed the saponifaction proccess although you have to know the flashpoints of your FO/EO so you dont burn off the scent. Why M&P soap is called glycerin soap is one I will never understand as the glycerin content is the same as CP or HP or CPOP proccessed soap (I can actually make it using the HP proccess...you use alcohol and sugar in that proccess to make it clear or semi clear. A GOOD M&P soap maker will use a good base as many M&P bases out there contain chemicals for lather etc. (Congratulatons to the good ones) Milled is done under pressure to hake a harder bar and yes they remove the glycerin so it cures faster also. The prossess of this form of making is called continuous (Lots of milled soaps add chemicals also). Not all Vegetable bases are Olive oil, although it is a great one). I can count over 50 vegetable oils and butters that can be used to make soap but that does not mean they would all help with a better quality of soap). I do use FO's and EO's...you really need to read when using EO's as some are down right dangerous or can really bother your skin. One example would be bitter almond as it is poison as a EO, Tallow is used quite a lot but can also be replaced with Lard. That about covers it for now, I hope this helps. Issy
there you go: Potassium Stearate, Sodium Stearate, Potassium Tallowate, Potassium Cocoate, Aqua, Sodium Tallowate, Glycerin, Sodium Cocoate, Parfum, Lanolin, Potassium Hydroxide, Tetrasodium EDTA, Tetrasodium Etidronate, Sodium Hydroxide, Alpha-Isomethyl Ionone, Benzyl Salicylate, Citronellol, Geraniol, Hydroxycitronellal, Hydroxyisohexyl 3-Cyclohexene Carboxaldehyde, Limonene, Linalool, CI 51319, CI 74160, CI 77891
So the Wilkinson Blue Bowl is this: Aqua, Stearic Acid, Sodium Hydroxide, Glycerin, Cocos Nuciferia, Parfum, Coconut Acid, PEG-7 Glyceryl Cocoate, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, Sodium Chloride, Diethylhexyl Sodium Sulfosuccinate, Sodium Benzoate, Ethylparaben, Tetrasodium EDTA, Amyl Cinnamal, Butylphenyl Methypropional, Citronellol, Hexyl Cinnamal, Limonene, Linalool And the Wilkinson Shave Stick is this: Potassium Stearate, Sodium Stearate, Potassium Tallowate, Potassium Cocoate, Aqua, Sodium Tallowate, Glycerin, Sodium Cocoate, Parfum, Lanolin, Potassium Hydroxide, Tetrasodium EDTA, Tetrasodium Etidronate, Sodium Hydroxide, Alpha-Isomethyl Ionone, Benzyl Salicylate, Citronellol, Geraniol, Hydroxycitronellal, Hydroxyisohexyl 3-Cyclohexene Carboxaldehyde, Limonene, Linalool, CI 51319, CI 74160, CI 77891 Thanks Klaus for the references. See? Good to know what's in your soap.
That's the way it is, Rich. You'd never even imagine this huge difference in both soaps. The stick is really, really great, but the bowl-stuff.... I wouldn't give that one to my worst enemy.
Is there any indicator in the ingredients of what is the cause of Klaus' ? Or is this just an individual thing with Klaus? ANy way to look at the label and say Ah Hah! I'll not be taking this one today
well, if you don't find something along the lines of on the top of the ingredients list but find "SLS" "SLES" "Sodium Lauryl Sulfate" or "Sodium Laureth Sulfate" between the 2nd and fifth place in the ingredients list, stay away from the "soap" - in that case it's no soap but a worthless tenside-mix as you would find in your average garage-cleaner //edit: Now I got curious and looked up the ingredients list of the Erasmic bowl - tenside-brew all the way, the only thing that gets this baby to lather is SLES - no trace of "soap" to be found...
With any soap, even "triple milled", the glycerin can be added back. This is called "super fatting". Petrolatum, mineral oil, shea butter, variations of palm oil products, many others, can be added to make the shave soap give a creamier and richer lather. SOME of the better shave soaps have made up for discontinuing tallow by using products such as these to re-create the great lather that tallow soaps are known to produce. Some are more successful than others, like Floris and GFT. Let's hope Penhaligon, whih has gone veggie, is good at this.
Rich, Klaus is right about that. Those ingredients are bad, really bad. I threw away the Wilkinson blue bowl that I had, as well as the black bowl. The Wilkinson stick is fantastic--that's a real soap.
Agreed. Any other shave soap that I have tried that contained SLS was a loser, so if it's on the ingredients list, I won't buy it. I'm sure there is an exception out there but none of the "good" soaps I have used have it.
