Soap Experimentation

Anyone else ever done this? Today I took about a 1/4 of a puck of VDH along with a Kiehls Black Tea Glycerine soap, along with about a Teaspoon of AdP AS and melted them all together. It smells wonderful and lathers pretty decent. I knew the Kiehls doesn't do so well on it own, but has a great scent. The VDH doesn't have a good scent but is an amazing performer. I just threw the ADP AS in there for a good scent.

Never that combination, but I have a container of VanDerWilliams sitting in the cabinet. A puck of each, one shredded, the other melted. The VDH acts as the binder and in use it looks like a bumpy soap puck. They work pretty good together and I actually like the scent of Williams.

I may need to try that

i've done a few experiments. my latest was about 75g of RR (musquet or lily or one of the florals), mixed with a couple QCS samples (hanami, Old Spice etc).

result was great. a nice soft soap, with great scent and the moisturizing properties of QCS.

I have created VDH Super Shave Soaps ever since I began DE Shaving back in 2008. I have melted and mixed VDH with the following KMF, Proraso, Lucky Tiger Shave Cream, Arko Shave Stick, Speick Shave Stick, and Palmolive Shave Stick all of these were small left overs that I just grated together then mixed it into some melted VDH Deluxe . You could see little specks of all the grated soaps inside the VDH Deluxe once it cooled back down. It worked great and the lather just exploded. I have also take a puck of Williams and set it in the Center of a shaving container then poured melted VDH Deluxe all around it till it was even with the top of the Williams. When it hardened back up it made a wonderful combination with great lather.

I knew I was not the only one who thought about this! I have not tried it yet, but was thinking about it this week actually...Blending soaps and or mixing AS. SUBSCRIBED

I have created a couple "Franken soaps" in the past,using EO instead of a cologne of EDT.
For some reason,I never used them more than twice.I remember once that I melt some Musgo Real shaving cream,with Kells Original soap (lavender) and another pour and melt soap on a Proraso container.It was very good indeed,with a nice scent but it looked terrible....

My favorite VDH concoction is a puck of VDH, about a tablespoon of Dr Bronners Tea Tree Oil liquid castile soap, a squirt of KMF Cool Mint shave cream, and a few drops of tea tree oil. I made a shave stick with it. It's a nice wake-up shave.

My new one is a puck of VDH, a slathering of Canoe AS and a bit of KMF Lime as well

edited to add. I got bored so I melted another puck of VDH Glycerine down and put Kramperts Finest Bay Rum in to solidify with it. Smells great

One of my favorite Frankensoaps was C.O. Bigelow added to a melted VdH puck. I then pored that mixture a puck of Williams. It was a wonderful shave.

I have 4 experiments going now.

A tube of old spice which is now a croap
A tube of co biglelow which is now a croap
The aforementioned vdh and kiells
A puck of vdh glycerin with old spice and a lot of extra glycerin.

I'm thinking of cutting the last experiment up into blocks and giving them away.

Please refresh my memory. What soaps can be melted in the microwave, and which ones cannot be melted? If someone could whip together two lists, that would be helpful. Thanks.

(07-10-2012, 04:40 PM)churchilllafemme Wrote: Please refresh my memory. What soaps can be melted in the microwave, and which ones cannot be melted? If someone could whip together two lists, that would be helpful. Thanks.

I know for a fact that VdH and Colonel Conk can be melted safely. I think that Mama Bear's and Honeybee soaps can be, but I'm not sure on this.

The only experimenting I've done was to add a bit of lavender EO to two melted pucks of VdH. The scent was faint, but definitely better than plain.

A while ago I combined all of my creams plus a chunk of P-160 together in a bowl and set it aside, open, in a sealed Tupperware dish, half full of silica gel, for six months. Every few weeks, or when I remembered, I would recharge the silica in the oven.
I ended up with about 20% of what I started out with after drying. It's performance I would stack against any cream/soap out there, but the smell of 26 creams and P-160 combined and dried, turned out to be not great.
It ended up a little firmer than proraso and would probably get harder but I now keep it in a sealed dish.

I've done a little research on the web, and it appears that only glycerine-based shaving soaps are meltable. So that would include, I believe:

Colonel Conk
Dovo
Em's Glycerine
Erasmic
Edwin Jagger
I Coloniali
Kells Original
Kiehls Black Tea Glycerine
Mama Bear
Proraso
Provence Sante Green Tea
Taylor of Old Bond Street (?)
Truefitt & Hill Luxury
G.F. Trumper
Van der Hagen
Wilkinson Sword

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

What about Ginger's Garden glycerin shave soaps?

(07-10-2012, 07:13 PM)freddy Wrote: What about Ginger's Garden glycerin shave soaps?

Right, my list isn't comprehensive at all. Presumably any soap that is "glycerine-based," i.e. high in glycerine content, or that says "glycerine soap," is meltable.

Yeah trust me, don't try to melt tallow soap in microwave

I destroyed a puck MWF by attempting that...plus the smell, I still cannot get it out of my nostrils.

I usually melt VDH and add unscented KMF with a heavy splash of AS or frangrance oil, makes for a great combo.

My newest experiment this morning is a new unused puck of VDH Deluxe plus a huge helping of Kramperts Finest. I'm waiting for it to gel right now then I'll make a lather. I have discovered that with VDH Glycerin, it's necessary to add some extra glycerin. I'm going to try this first and see if I need extra glycerin in it.

If this one works out, then I'll make some Barbasol Pacific Rush Shave Soap next.

So far I have a VDH Puck of Old Spice, Canoe, and Kramperts Finest.

I've created a few Franken-razors, but I've never concocted a Franken-soap. I think I'll live vicariously for now and leave the experimenting to others... Good luck with your creations gentlemen!