Angora Soaps - Ingredients

Welcome to Angora Soaps! Our specialty is shaving soaps that are formulated to provide a rich dense lather that will give superior protection and performance with a double-edged (DE) or Straight razor. Our soaps are created in small batches and we have launched our first fragrance line. Look out for more fragrances coming this year! I believe in keeping our soaps simple with great oils and butters, that I am proud to use myself and sell. 

Let’s talk about the ingredients

Stearic Acid – We form the backbone of our lather with Stearic Acid, which is a naturally occurring acid found in animal fats and plant products. In our case, we use a Stearic Acid that is pressed out of plants. You will find most shaving soaps contain stearic acid as it forms a very creamy lather.

Distilled Water – Nothing special here, just plain old distilled water to start the lye process.

Beef Tallow – Tallow is rendered from beef fat which is commonly used in soap products for its moisturizing properties. I source tallow from cows that are grass-fed and not pumped with hormones. My experience with various shave soaps has shown that the best lather has some amount of tallow in it. In the future, we are planning to make a vegan-friendly formula.

Shea Butter – Shae butter is extracted from the nut of the African Shea tree and is loaded with great vitamins like A, E, and F. Some of the best cosmetics in the world use Shea butter as it is a great moisturizer and regenerates the skin. We like it in the shave soap because it leaves you with a nice post-shave feeling. 

Kokum Butter – We pair shea butter up with Kokum butter, which is a little on the harder side, and has a lot of great skin moisturizing properties. Kokum butter comes from tropical regions of India and is extracted from the Garcinia tree fruit. It adds to the creaminess of the lather and is known to decrease skin irritation.

Coconut Oil – Coconut oil is very popular for soap makers. It has a high cleansing effect that can strip dirt and oils from your face, and aids with building the lather quick. However, we don’t use much making shaving soap as it can leave you feeling very dry. Shaving soap isn’t intended to be a face wash, so we lean more towards a soap that is slick and moisturizing during the shave. 

Potassium Hydroxide – One part of our lye process is Potassium Hydroxide (KOH). We mix the potassium hydroxide with sodium hydroxide to create the precursor to the soap. It is commonly used in liquid soaps but when properly combined with sodium hydroxide it creates a softer soap that makes it ideal for shaving with and loading your brush.

Sodium Hydroxide – NaOH for short is the other half of the lye process. It’s most commonly found in harder soaps and with the potassium hydroxide makes our semi-hard shaving soap puck. Lye has been around for a very, very long time. The earliest known use in soap was around the 13th century.  It is obtained from boiling the ashes of plants and wood. There’s a very fascinating history to it’s uses in soapmaking. 

Glycerin – We spike our soaps after the saponification process with some vegetable glycerin. Glycerin is created during the soap making process and we find it’s best to add a little extra before we start to cure. Overall Glycerin adds more moisture and slickness to your face so your razor glides smoothly over your beard. 

Castor Oil – Castor bean oil is one of our soft liquid oils that we add to create conditioning effects. Castor oil is excellent for hair and is popular for shampoos and conditioners.

Avocado Oil - We settled on Avocado oil as another soft oil in our base. It’s loaded with vitamins and can be easier to handle for people with sensitive or dry skin. A little bit adds to the conditioning process.

Lanolin – I love lanolin in my shaving soaps because it leaves my skin feeling soft. A lot of the best shaving soaps include lanolin these days as it’s known for its great water absorption and moisturizing attributes. It’s a liquid wax that is very slick, and it is found in sheep wool. It rounds out the soap and makes a terrific post-shave.

Essential Oils/Fragrance Oils – We use a blend of fragrance oils and essential oils. Essential oils are natural oils from plants and organic material. Most of the time they are steamed distilled and can fetch a hefty price tag. We blend different oils to create the desired fragrance and add them to the soap before curing within recommended ranges from the supplier.

Fragrance Oils are synthetic and can be blended with essential oils. All of our fragrance oils are phthalate-free and have been sold as safe for use on skin. If you do experience irritation from the fragrance or any oils used in our products, discontinue use immediately.

That’s our ingredient list for now and we will let you know if we change anything. If you have any questions or are not sure about something, just ask me.

Load up and lather!

Pete