Hi from Brogo

[roger]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the welcome, Brogo is definitely not made up but a not so well kept secret. About 400 people in an area at least half the size of Sydney and boasts the state's smallest dam. I have 5 acres of hard work.

For weird/great names we have Numbugga just nearby, and there is a creek a bit further south called Jingo Creek, the house next door is called By Jingo!

As for the soaps we specialise only in cold processed castile soap because "she who knits" insists we only make a soap for people sensitive skin, hence our shaving soap is an olive oil based soap with castor oil added to make it foam better. It takes longer to work up a decent lather but for those with sensitive skin (our customers) worth the effort.

I am now experimenting with a mix of 100% EV olive and varying the lye mix with different proportions of NaOH and KOH, hopefully I will know the results in 6-8 weeks once they are cured. If the mix is good I will definitely be calling on volunteers.

And today a new synthetic brush (el-cheapo) arrive in the mail, i am keen to follow up some of my theories of what make a good shaving soap, so I am keeping a bit of a shaving log and hope to share some of my findings.

sheers

 

[Ginge]

Welcome mate a great group of blokes here

 

[alfredus]

Really interesting - it would be the first (as far as I know) working olive oil based shaving soap...

 

[roger]

Hi alfredus
Olive oil soaps do make reasonable to very good shaving soaps but they are just a bitch to lather up. The problem lies with the fact that olive oil makes a very hard soap, great if you are using it to wash your hands, it lasts a long time.

I found this on wickipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaving_soap#Ingredients and I decided to give it a try. I have never used potassium hydroxide for soapmaking before because we we always trying to make a hard soap.

I am trying to get the best of both worlds, a pure castile soap that lathers quickly for a shave.

 

[khun_diddy]

You could be onto a winner. Keen to see how it goes.

 

[filobiblic]

Those are some terrific names! You learn something new every...

As for the soaps we specialise only in cold processed castile soap because "she who knits" insists we only make a soap for people sensitive skin, hence our shaving soap is an olive oil based soap with castor oil added to make it foam better. It takes longer to work up a decent lather but for those with sensitive skin (our customers) worth the effort.

You don't need Olive oil to make it suitable for sensitive skin. There are LOTS of other suitable oils.

I am now experimenting with a mix of 100% EV olive and varying the lye mix with different proportions of NaOH and KOH, hopefully I will know the results in 6-8 weeks once they are cured. If the mix is good I will definitely be calling on volunteers.

But I guess your experience is with Olive Oil so you may as well give it a crack. It'll be interesting to know the results. I - and many shavers - are with @alfredus on this one. Best of luck with it! I'd love to be proved wrong! Olive oil is so good for the skin. [emoji6]

 

[bald as]

I am curious so this weekend I will see if I can formulate a shaving soap using a good portion of Olive oil. I will be doing it hot process so will have a batch to report back quite quickly.

Steve

 

[roger]

You don't need Olive oil to make it suitable for sensitive skin. There are LOTS of other suitable oils.

You are right, but it is arguable that olive oil one of the best.
It is more what you leave out of the soap - preservatives, artificial fragrances and colours - that makes it suitable for sensitive skin more so than the oils or fats used.

Cold process soapmaking is another factor for sensitive skin as the glycerin that forms is retained in the soap. So a CP soap made from tallow is likely to be better than any soap you can buy at the stupidmarket for people with sensitive skin, but one made from olive oil is just so much nicer to use

I am curious so this weekend I will see if I can formulate a shaving soap using a good portion of Olive oil. I will be doing it hot process so will have a batch to report back quite quickly.

Steve

Good luck Steve, looking forward to the results

Monsta Edit: Please do not post multiple posts in a row, use multiquote

 

[alfredus]

I love olive oil on my skin - in 4 out of 5 shaves olive oil is the last product I use. Having said that, I know olive oil makes the lather collapse - I think many many have tried before you and failed.

I really wish you the best of luck with this project and I would be your first customer if it works!!!

On a side note: I don't think anyone here buys their soaps in the supermarket - even the Arko crowd orders online

 

[stillshunter]

On a side note: I don't think anyone here buys their soaps in the supermarket - even the Arko crowd orders online

Wow the arko crowd have houses? Hmmm...OK that helps as I always wondered how they had bestshave.net address orders to their bus shelter or charity clothes bin.

 

[roger]

I know olive oil makes the lather collapse

in a soap olive oil gives a fine silky lather, it doesn't form larger bubbles but it is rich in glycerin and think that it is the glycerin that make all the difference in hydrating and lubricating the skin. I am not sure that bubbles do much for shaving.

After a little testing I think that there is a way to get a great have from a pure olive oil soap, the trick is in preparation of the lather. I will do a couple more tests and report back.

 

[alfredus]

Bubbles - especially large ones - are bad for the lather as well...

What I mean is, when you make your lather and let it stay on your brush/in your bowl it will disappear very quickly and turn into a (for lack of better words) soapy film.

Most people (me included) make their lather once at the beginning of their shave, and it should hold its shape for the whole duration of the shave - IMO at least 30min.

I think this will be the problem with olive oil - but again I would be the first to applaud you - and to buy some of you if it works

 

[roger]

30 minutes is a long time, however I do think that there is a way to work up a lather with an olive oil soap.

The trick is to give the glycerin a chance to hydrate, I have been testing some ideas out this morning, I whipped up a lather using our shaving soap using very hot water, then I let it sit for ten minutes. I whipped it up again and this time the lather was more like a cream, the bubbles seemed even finer and the glycerin seemed fuller or more hydrated. I didn't need a shave but I brushed it on and it spread across my face like a thick coat of paint. After five minutes it was still clinging all over.

Going to try it again tonight but this time shave with it

 

[stillshunter]

30 minutes is a long time, however I do think that there is a way to work up a lather with an olive oil soap.

The trick is to give the glycerin a chance to hydrate, I have been testing some ideas out this morning, I whipped up a lather using our shaving soap using very hot water, then I let it sit for ten minutes. I whipped it up again and this time the lather was more like a cream, the bubbles seemed even finer and the glycerin seemed fuller or more hydrated. I didn't need a shave but I brushed it on and it spread across my face like a thick coat of paint. After five minutes it was still clinging all over.

Going to try it again tonight but this time shave with it

Hmmm...I wonder if time is a key factor in getting lather from soaps with olive oil? I was just, incidentally, doing some research on making my own castile soap and one article closed with:

I just recently started using some soap bars from a 100% olive oil castile soap recipe batch that I had created over a year ago. I'll tell you what... that soap is divine and yes, very hard! In fact, the castile soap from that long-ago batch is one of my all-time favorite soap bars that I have ever used. This gentle, yet cleansing soap has a wonderful lather that is creamy and robust. Yes... after time, even a 100% olive oil soap will produce a great lather!

 

[Monsta_AU]

30 minutes is a long time, however I do think that there is a way to work up a lather with an olive oil soap.

Like others, I am really sceptical on the lathering of an olive oil soap. I have tried more than just a few and never could get them to work. Best I could get was a good first pass, then it had evaporated on the second pass. Any soap with multiple component oils/fats PLUS olive oil were generally completely fail.

My thoughts are that there is generally too much moisture in the olive oil - most of the ones I see claim they only use first press Extra Virgin or similar which I know is rather high in moisture. I would be heating it to 100c and back down before making soap with it which hopefully burns off some of the water content. What that does to the oil itself and the saponification afterwards I have no clue. Again, might need to be a trial doing it that way.

To be honest, none of us would be waiting half an hour to relather the soap. Most of the well-known artisan producers will hot-process their soaps and to be honest the out of the jar performance and reliability of these products on the whole is simply amazing. It might be worthwhile to get one or two of these and then see how yours compares to them and see if you cannot tune your mix to something that works better.

Hmmm...I wonder if time is a key factor in getting lather from soaps with olive oil?

Could be, but 12 month cure time is a a hell of a wait to find out if it has worked.

 

[roger]

.I wonder if time is a key factor in getting lather from soaps with olive oil

I am sure it is.

This is my guess at it:

olive oil soap is about 9% glycerin but that is locked up amongst the soap molecules. Water (preferably hot) and agitation (from the brush) releases the soap which dissolves in the water freeing the glycerin so it can also start sucking up that water. If you put it on your face at this stage the glycerin would start sucking moisture from anywhere it can get it including your face. The lather collapses and the face feels dry.

If you wait till the glycerin has had a chance to fully hydrate and then work up a lather a second time the result is totally different.

I believe this would hold true for any cold processed soap not just Castile

 

[roger]

Like others, I am really sceptical on the lathering of an olive oil soap.

Try my suggestion above.

also not all olive oil or Castile soaps are the same, not everyone uses the same process, oil quality, percentage of olive oil, superfatting, water content, cure temperatures, humidity and time as well as any or many of the additives such as fragrance, colouring and preservatives. Maybe you have been using duds?

hundreds of years ago Castile was used to wash babies and to shave with, it was too expensive for general use, so I see no reason that it should not be good today and the problem I think is in the preparation of the lather - because it works for me.

 

[bald as]

I won't have time this weekend but Roger and I have spoken about shaving soaps and on Friday I made a very modified [from my previous recipes] soap with low additional Stearic acid.

I hot process - I'm the soap making equivalent of a kid with ADD as I need to at least make a lather as soon as it solidifies.
The results were pleasing. I formulated it along the lines of a shaving soap and not a body soap. That is: Low bubble and as high as I could get Cream character.

My soap was Tallow
Rice Bran Oil as I didn't have any Olive oil on hand- similar but not the same characteristics as Olive in terms of bubble,cream and conditioning
Castor Oil
and a small percentage of Stearic acid.

Potassium and Sodium Hydroxide 60%/40% which gives a very soft soap. I would probably use 50/50 next time.
I intend to make a shaving soap very similar to this one with Olive replacing the Rice bran oil but keeping everything the same to see any changes.

It is a challenging excersize.

Steve

 

[Monsta_AU]

Try my suggestion above.

I cannot now, used them up as bath soap and moved on with life.

also not all olive oil or Castile soaps are the same, not everyone uses the same process, oil quality, percentage of olive oil, superfatting, water content, cure temperatures, humidity and time as well as any or many of the additives such as fragrance, colouring and preservatives. Maybe you have been using duds?

Absolutely. However I have never made soaps myself so I won't be starting with something like that. I'd do a standard cold process like @Nick the Knife has, and only as bath - not shaving. I have enough B&M to last me quite a while so no need just yet.

hundreds of years ago Castile was used to wash babies and to shave with, it was too expensive for general use, so I see no reason that it should not be good today and the problem I think is in the preparation of the lather - because it works for me.

I'd say people making soaps that don't shave and have no idea what they are actually doing. Adding some betonite clay to the bath soap you have been making doesn't magically turn it into a shave soap.

 

[Nick the Knife]

@roger , welcome. Some very interesting discussions being stimulated already by you. I'd suggest perhaps popping a thread up in the shaving soap section about Olve oil shaving soaps & specifically your findings. Simply put it's very rare to find OO in shaving soaps and therefore it would seem logical that this is probably done for good reason and that this good reason is probably as it's not well suited to a shaving soap. Both would seem the most logical explainations.

HOWEVER, you do make a compelling counterpoint that the users technique just needs to be modified a little to allow for the different properties of a 100% OO soap. I think thats definitely plausible.

That said and whilst I agree that OO in soaps has some great properties - IF the said goal is to achieve a very 'skin friendly' product that also performs great as a shaving soap is the selection of 100% OO for the soap and no other oils the BEST solution to achieve this goal? It would be arrogant of me to presume to have an absolute answer given your vastly superior experience & testing of prototypes of these soaps but I would say it would be surprising were this to be the case (this is said with COMPLETE respect and is merely an objective observation ).

As a highly experienced soapmaker you'd know that most soap formulations are made up of atleast 3+ oils/fats. Using a single oil/fat in a soap is almost unheard of, with the sole commonly agreed exception being OO. Though as already stated this too bring others significant challenges e.g very long recommended cure time.

As you'd already know, whilst one can toss almost any oils into a bath soap and get pretty good results - shaving soaps are a very niche/specialised beast. And folks in there parts are already using the absolute best shaving soaps in the world - so they know something that 'works' vs something that 'works REALLY well'.

I suspect that you're right in that 100% OO can make a workable soap that if lathered in the right manner can make a workable lather and give decent results. But in itself this is similar to me saying that if I sharpen a machete very well I CAN shave with it - a logical and fair observation would be Ok, but if that the best tool for the job? And with my somewhat limited experience I suspect thats the case with 100% OO in a dedicated shaving soap, it'll work - but are there better options/formulations that give superior results?

But I would love to know more about your results and look forward to reading more about it. I think OO is underrated in skin care, like @alfredus , I followed the advice of @razorguy and now finish all my shaves with an application of it on my skin instead of a mineral oil derived moisturiser.

Do you mind if I ask, which commercial or artisan shaving soaps have you benchmarked your own shaving soap against to compare it's performance?

Welcome to the forum, look forward to reading more about your soap making. Cheers, Nick