Homemade shaving soap and aftershave

Last week I decided to make my own shaving soap and aftershave.  The aftershave was easy to make, but the soap was….quite an adventure.  Why did I do this you ask…’cause I get bored and it’s better than trying to make rockets or something along those lines that usually end in disaster.

I made the aftershave because I wanted to be able to tailor the scent to my liking, and make it mild, not really bold like some of them out there.  In addition I wanted to know what was in it unlike some of them out there that have all sorts of chemicals probably used in the taxidermy business.  For my first try I ended up using a recipe I found off of the internet, and it turned out pretty good.  I like the scent, and it works well after the shave.  I use a DE razor so it’s rough on the skin unlike those mach 5 (or whatever number they’re on) razors that have slick strips and rubber pads on them.  I’ll have to admit I nick myself all the time too so it’s good to have something afterwards that will heal and cleans the skin from infection.  Here’s the link to the recipe…I used the cedarwood/juniper one at the bottom: AFTERSHAVE LINK

The aftershave done I decided to make some soap.  I did this for similar reasons and was hoping to turn out a product that would have cost me top dollar commercially.  I could also alter the scent and its intensity if I wanted (I went with a vanilla/sandalwood-cedarwood mixture…turned out alright).

So back to the story…the soap was where it really got exciting.  The aftershave was just pour and shake, but the soap uses lye (Sodium Hydroxide) and it’s some nasty stuff.  After mixed with water, the solution turns boiling hot.  The lye itself (aside from temperature) will severly burn your skin, is bad to inhale, and can cause blindness if it comes into contact with the eye.

So there I was at 10pm in my apartment with big scrubbung gloves, sunglasses, and my cooking pots trying to make soap.  One detail I overlooked is the part where you mix it to produce “trace.”  The little detail was that with a high speed mixer, it would take about a minute to work…hand stired…an hour or more.  It definitely took more than an hour, and I had soap all over the kitchen by the time it was done.  It was still a fun experience, but I think I’ll do things a little differently next time.    Here is the recipe I used: SOAP INSTRUCTIONS

I poured the soap into some cheap cups I found at Walmart.  In hindsight I think I should have poured it all in a pipe and cut it into pieces later…the cups are too full to whip up a lather very easily.

I cant decide if I like the lather or not.  I’m used to creams by now that whip up with my brush into really thick coats…this isn’t worse, just different I guess.  With the oils in the soap, and clay, it provides a really soothing slick finish, and I think that more than makes up for the thin-ness of the lather.  All-in-all I’m pretty happy with the end product of the soap and aftershave.  In the long run I’m going to save a lot of money this route, and can with time, perfect the scent and characteristics of each…which is right up my ally…more fun to play with things than just buy them sometimes

Above is the stained walnut stand I made for my shaving kit.  I bent a walnut dowel over steam for the twig effect, put a border inlay on the base, and stained it all with a walnut/colored stain.  My badger brush hangs over my homemade soap.  The blue bottle contains the aftershave I made, and the far right is my Gillette DE razor.  It’s a 1957 Gillette adjustable 195 (because new at the time it cost $1.95) or more commonly known now as the Fat Boy because of it’s short fat design.  It is the old butterfly model and can be adjusted for aggressiveness of shave.