Published on January 16th, 2018 | by Sarah Dephillips

Fluffy DIY Shaving Cream

What do many Americans do nearly every day that physically drags the natural oil and moisture out of our skin and leaves tiny micro-cuts behind? Shaving! And what do we add to this process that introduces potential irritants, endocrine disrupters and carcinogens to this vulnerable, micro-scratched skin? Shaving cream, of course!

We can all agree that the alternative of shaving without shaving cream isn’t any more appealing. We’ve all been on a trip, in a hurry, or forgot to add shaving cream to the grocery list and suffered the painful consequences of skipping the essential step of lathering up before raking the razor across wet (or dry) skin. So what’s a man or woman to do if they want to skip the chemicals AND the suffering?

Some natural remedies books I’ve read recommend just shaving with natural plant oil, like coconut or olive. Have you ever tried that? Don’t. I tried it for you, and I wanted to save you the hassle of spending 12 minutes trying to clean the goopy gunk out of your razor and eventually abandoning all hope and throwing it away. Yeah, I know, it’s gross. Spare yourself. Another alternative is to use just soap (a good plant-based liquid Castile soap works best) but this lacks the moisture that scaly winter skin (or salty/sun-exposed skin) craves.

Enter my favorite homemade shaving cream recipe. It smells amazing, it feels amazing, it’s actually good for your skin, and it washes out of the razor in a normal, high-efficiency shower or sink stream!

Homemade Shaving Cream Recipe

Ingredients:

1/3 C shea butter

1/3 C coconut oil

2 Tbsp almond oil

3 Tbsp Castile soap

2 tsp baking soda

Essential oils – scents and amount as desired.

Directions:

In a double-boiler over med to low heat, melt the shea butter and coconut oil together. As you can see from the picture, I don’t have a double boiler, so I use a pot with water in it and a similarly sized steel bowl set inside the pot. This works just as well, as long as your bowl is metal and fits in the pot well. The purpose of a double boiler is just to apply heat more slowly and gently than heating something directly on a burner, and it’s not totally essential.
When both ingredients are melted, remove from heat and add in almond oil. Allow to cool to room temperature, then put the bowl or pot in the fridge to chill.
When your substance has cooled into a hard, waxy consistency, take it out of the fridge and fire up your electric mixer. Start on a low setting – it will be chunky and hard to mix at first, but it whips best if you don’t let it soften too much before beating it.
Gradually add in the soap, baking soda, and essential oils (as desired), continuing to beat and increasing the speed on your mixer as you go. When you’re done, the chunks should be gone and it should be very fluffy.
Transfer to a water-tight container, being careful not to crunch the fluff too much.

Tips:

– Allowing water into your shaving cream will decrease its shelf life. It’s hard when your hands are wet, but try to keep it as water-free as possible so it’ll last longer.

– You can play with the “washability” of this recipe by increasing or decreasing the soap. If it’s too sticky in your razor, increase the amount of Castile soap a little at a time until you like it.

If you try this recipe, let us know how it went, by adding a comment below! Keep in mind, this recipe was developed and used in a semi-tropical environment. Colder weather may cause differential results, so you may have to tweak things to get it just right–again, we’d love to hear from you if you try it, so that we can let other readers know!