Turning Creams into Soaps

What is your opinion on fine shaving creams and hard soaps? Do you like Trumpers, Coates, Taylors, Truefitt & Hill? Post your reviews and opinions here!
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drmoss_ca
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Turning Creams into Soaps

Post by drmoss_ca »

I have a tub of very dry Taylor's Lemon-Lime cream, which works nicely as a soap. It inspired me to try drying some creams, but even placing open tubs in the freezer for a few weeks didn't work, so here is a new approach. I had thought of using my dehydrator (the kind of thing used for making jerky) but the shelves are too narrow to accommodate a tub. Then I thought of something else - my film dryer. The Kleen-Dri was a device with a heater, fan and cartridge of silica gel, and a spool of freshly developed film is placed in it to dry the film for printing or scanning. Here it is:

Image

and here are the current contents:

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which turn out to be:

Image

The original Taylor rose cream, from before any modern era reformulations. I think it was around 2005 that I bought a dozen of these. It should make a good soap in a few days!

Chris
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Post by gil3591 »

i'm wondering what you intend to gain from this? you already have a dried out tub as it is :roll: now if you could triple mill it, well, then you'd have something. how about a cinder block and some cheese cloth? 8-[
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Post by 2clfrwrds »

I'm totally on board with this project, because I too prefer soaps to creams: no right or wrong, just personal preference.

For example, my tub of RazoRock Classic is now a pleasure to use, ever since I left it open on the fireplace mantel for several months last fall and winter. It's about as hard as Cade soap.

The very long drying time reduced the fragrance's potency - which was fine for RazoRock Classic, but maybe not so good for Taylor's Rose. A mild heat makes sense to me.

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Post by ShadowsDad »

Now if you could pull a vacuum on it you'd have freeze dried soap! In a short time.

I'm interested in this. Keep us updated. I always prefer the longevity of a soap.

Someday, if I ever have time, I might fire up the vacuum pump and give the idea a try.
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Post by jww »

Seeing your pics of the Kleen-Dri sure brought back memories!

Great to see re-use of a highly specific product.
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Post by brothers »

I turned SMN, Musgo Real, Proraso, and La Toja Sensitive into soaps by letting them sit uncovered for weeks and weeks. The Musgo and Proraso worked really well as soaps for about a year, then the Proraso just seemed to turn into an inert wax. The La Toja wouldn't ever harden, it was just mushy, and I didn't like using it. The SMN turned to sand. The Musgo seemed to become just a mediocre soap in terms of smell and performance. A sad ending to the whole affair one day as they all were unceremoniously scraped out of their containers and into the trash. I recommend against wasting good creams.
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Post by drmoss_ca »

The plot thickens, as does the cream. After twelve hours of warmth and air flow, there was a skin on the surface and it felt soft and marshmallow like - softer than before. I sniffed and realised it didn't smell of roses, so I looked underneath and discovered it was a tub of Coates Almond with the wrong lid on it! I had used a Taylor's lid when I got a tub of Coates with a cracked lid (ironically, because I didn't want it to dry out!) But when I lifted it to look at the underneath of the tub, some poured out onto the floor - it had melted under that soft skin. It instantly set quite firm on hitting the cool floor, so I scraped it up with a spatula and I shall now let it all cool. It might just set firm and be what I want. But a bigger question is raised by this: given that a few weeks in a freezer didn't dry it at all, and given that the cream melted and left a skin with a squishy air gap between it and the runny cream underneath, is this 'drying out' really dehydration? Or is the cream melting into a runny liquid, releasing the entrapped air remaining from the mixing/whipping during manufacture, and what's left will be the basic soap? Perhaps the occasional 'dried out' tubs have just sat in a sunny spot for a few hours and undergone physical change as a result. Tomorrow morning will tell, when it will be cool and, I hope, fairly hard and soap-like.
(And that gil, is why I do it. Now and then you make a new discovery! :shock: )

Chris
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Post by 2clfrwrds »

Chris, how warm are we talking about inside that Kleen-Dri? A balmy 85F or a cooked pork chop 150F? (I tried Googling, but it seems that Kleen-Dri isn't a trending piece of gear at the moment.)

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Post by bernards66 »

Chris, When you figure out a way ( which you probably will...chuckle ) of turning hard soaps into proper consistancy creams please do let me know...sigh.
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Post by Janus »

I'm Flubbergasted! :D
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Post by drmoss_ca »

The Coates had firmed up this AM, and was like Tipo Duro, which is a bit softer than my dried out Taylor's L&L. There is a bit more volume in the Coates tub when cf. the Taylor's, but I don't know if this means anything as the fill level may not have been the same in the first place. Splendid shave with it - I like the workflow and convenience of soaps, and this lets me have the typical cream lather but from what is now a solid rather than a goop.
So this morning I dried off the Coates and did what I should have done at the start - I weighed it. 186g without the lid. I also dried out the silica gel cartridge in the oven and have started it off again in the Kleen-Dri. I'll weigh it again before bed.
Oh, the temperature in the Kleen-Dri is about that which you would get from a hairdryer set Low-Medium.

Chris
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Post by Janus »

Good to hear that DIY is working for you. The obvious question here, though, is whether you've tried the concentrated dr.selby cream yet? If not, I highly recommend it. BTW, thanks to SMF in general and Gary (brothers) in particular for pointing out this wonderful product.
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Post by drmoss_ca »

Very little further drying - 183g. Once again it melted and went runny and then went hard on cooling.

Chris
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Post by brothers »

Janus wrote:Good to hear that DIY is working for you. The obvious question here, though, is whether you've tried the concentrated dr.selby cream yet? If not, I highly recommend it. BTW, thanks to SMF in general and Gary (brothers) in particular for pointing out this wonderful product.
I've been using the Selby concentrated for several days in a row so I can get a good feel for it. It likes water, and it just bursts into that nice thick lather. Doesn't seem to take very long loading it on the brush either.
Gary

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Post by Squire »

I've been following this experiment in transmutation with some degree of interest in the hope that a nugget of useful information might turn up.
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Post by John Parker »

I have a tub of TOBS sandalwood cream that dried out (must not have had the lid on tight enough), and I think it is great! The drying process did not seem to impact the scent, and, with it dry, I can load my brush very effectively right from the tub. Don't have an overabundance of "cream" on the brush as I load like I would if the "cream" was in its original state.
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Post by jww »

Squire wrote:I've been following this experiment in transmutation with some degree of interest in the hope that a nugget of useful information might turn up.
+1 -- I am finding this entire process fascinating as well.
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Post by churchilllafemme »

jww wrote:
Squire wrote:I've been following this experiment in transmutation with some degree of interest in the hope that a nugget of useful information might turn up.
+1 -- I am finding this entire process fascinating as well.
Me too. I have resuscitated one jar of old Penhaligon's Lords cream and have four more to think about. I haven't tried to go the other way, drying out the creams. I like the heavier scents of creams, and I'm afraid that open air drying would cause them to lose too much of the scent for me, leaving them like an old Colgate or Williams - just plain soap.
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Post by John Parker »

churchilllafemme wrote:
jww wrote:
Squire wrote:I've been following this experiment in transmutation with some degree of interest in the hope that a nugget of useful information might turn up.
+1 -- I am finding this entire process fascinating as well.
Me too. I have resuscitated one jar of old Penhaligon's Lords cream and have four more to think about. I haven't tried to go the other way, drying out the creams. I like the heavier scents of creams, and I'm afraid that open air drying would cause them to lose too much of the scent for me, leaving them like an old Colgate or Williams - just plain soap.
I would have thought that the scent would have lessened as well, but in my case (albeit a non-deliberate drying) that did not turn out to be the case. The TOBS sandalwood scent is as powerful as when it started as a true cream.
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Post by brothers »

I think an English cream is a good candidate for your experiment Chris. I am interested in how this experiment turns out, and hope that the finished product has three important qualities: 1. performs as expected, 2. little or no marked loss of smell, and 3. lasts a very long time in the hardened state, once it finally gets to that stage. In other words, I'd want the finished product to stabilize and deteriorate (if it must) at a very very very slow pace.
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