Any tips for a fledgling soap maker?

Any tips for a fledgling soap maker? I know some of the basics around making standard bath bars, and I know that those recipes do not work for shave soaps, but all other methods of soap making are the same right?

Making a great shaving soap can take years of experience and experimentation. The best advice I can give you is to understand the fatty acid composition of the various fats, butters and oils used in making shaving soap. These can include animal fats and milks such as: beef tallow, lamb tallow, bison tallow, duck fat, pig fat (manteca), sheep milk, goat milk, camel milk, water buffalo milk, emu oil, and vegetable oils and butters such as: Shea butter, Cocoa butter, Kokum butter, Mango butter, Tucuma butter, Illipe butter, Jajoba oil, Castor oil, Olive oil, palm oil, palm kernel oil, Coconut oil, Sunflower oil, Avocado oil, Hemp Seed oil, Radish seed oil, Apricot seed oil, Grape seed oil, Daikon seed oil, etc. Then there are waxes such as lanolin, rice bran wax and beeswax. Then there are the chemicals needed to saponify the fats (sodium and potassium hydroxide) and other additives such as silk protein, bentonite clay, and glycerin.

The best shaving soap formulations today of 25 to 50 different ingredients all combined in precise measurements. There are soaps with fewer ingredients, but the performance tends to be limited. if all you are aiming for is a soap that will produce a slick lather, that is easy, but to get one that has the proper balance of slickness, skin protection, and skin conditioning is more challenging. If you want to produce a soap for your own use and your needs are modest, go for it. If you want to produce soaps to sell to people like me with sensitive skin, then you will need a lot of practice.

Buy this book.

Buy this book.

 Jason Rudman of Ruds Shaves evaluated well over  125 soaps using his self-developed system. He rated the soaps on a scale of 100 points.

Soap Commander only managed to achieve a rating of 73 which places it in the bottom 10 of all the soaps he evaluated. To place that in perspective, the best soap he rated was 105 points, but I have since evaluated several soaps that I consider to be even better than that one. On Rud's scale, a score of 85 is considered average, so a score of 73 is not very good.  I do not know if Soap Commander has improved the performance of their soaps since Jason evaluated the soap. The formula used by Soap Commander is still a very simple one: Ingredients: Stearic Acid, Distilled Water, Shea Butter, Coconut Oil, Potassium Hydroxide, Glycerin, Sodium Hydroxide, Castor Oil, Fragrance.  

I have not used Soap Commander, so I cannot comment on the performance personally, but it is not a soap I would consider adding to my collection of soaps.

Buy this book.

 Jason Rudman of Ruds Shaves evaluated well over  125 soaps using his self-developed system. He rated the soaps on a scale of 100 points.

Soap Commander only managed to achieve a rating of 73 which places it in the bottom 10 of all the soaps he evaluated. To place that in perspective, the best soap he rated was 105 points, but I have since evaluated several soaps that I consider to be even better than that one. On Rud's scale, a score of 85 is considered average, so a score of 73 is not very good.  I do not know if Soap Commander has improved the performance of their soaps since Jason evaluated the soap. The formula used by Soap Commander is still a very simple one: Ingredients: Stearic Acid, Distilled Water, Shea Butter, Coconut Oil, Potassium Hydroxide, Glycerin, Sodium Hydroxide, Castor Oil, Fragrance.  

I have not used Soap Commander, so I cannot comment on the performance personally, but it is not a soap I would consider adding to my collection of soaps.

Then OP should buy the Ruds Soap Making book so he can score 100.

Consult with people knowledgeable in the soap making trade. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. The shaving market is competitive and shavers are pretty demanding. They won’t accept mediocrity so if you don’t come out of the gate with a pretty high performing product there probably won’t be opportunity for second chances. 

If you listen to the lather talk podcast episode where the guys interview Ben from Mammoth soap you can get some great insights from a guy in the trenches who’s had reasonable success. There are several lather talk episodes where the guys interview artisans and entrepreneurs that are worth listening to. 

Good luck

Consult with people knowledgeable in the soap making trade. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. The shaving market is competitive and shavers are pretty demanding. They won’t accept mediocrity so if you don’t come out of the gate with a pretty high performing product there probably won’t be opportunity for second chances. 

If you listen to the lather talk podcast episode where the guys interview Ben from Mammoth soap you can get some great insights from a guy in the trenches who’s had reasonable success. There are several lather talk episodes where the guys interview artisans and entrepreneurs that are worth listening to. 

Good luck

There are a number of artisans who make great soaps.

Ariana and Evans/The Club
Barrister and Mann
Declaration Grooming
Ethos Grooming Essentials
Gentleman's Nod
Grooming Dept
House of Mammoth
Murphy & McNeil
Nobel Otter
Oaken Lab
Wholly Kaw
Zingari Man


Look at the ingredients used by these artisans to get an idea of how to build a great soap. However, just knowing the ingredients is not sufficient. The quantities and order in which they are added also play a significant role. A few years ago, there was one guy who tried to copy a formulation produced by another artisan. The copycat did not stay in business for long while the original artisan continued to make improvements to their product offerings.

Making the soap is the easy part.

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