# My Experimental Honey & Beeswax Soap



## IrishLass

This is my experimental honey & beeswax soap that I made the other night, just as August 11 was turning into August 12. I made a small, 1.2 lb sample-batch just in case any chaos ensued, as I didn't want a bigger batch to be ruined, if you know what I mean.  Although I'm quite used to soaping with honey, beeswax, on the other hand, is new territory for me.

I used beeswax as 3% of my formula along with the oils/fats (the pellet form from Peak's- the kind that still smells like the hive- heavenly!). And I used 5% honey ppo, which was just a little over 1 tbsp. for my batch size.

For my formula, I just used my favorite Bastile recipe with 50% OO, using a 33% lye concentration and superfatted @ 6%.

And I scented it with .3oz ppo of Wild Mountain Honey from Peaks (2% usage rate).

Oh, and I laid bubble-wrap on the surface of my batter.

After cutting and beveling today, I melted down some of WSP's Honey M&P in a double boiler and used one of those 'pinch-size' measuring spoons to fill the holes up (spraying the surface of the soap with alcohol first). Some of the M&P dripped down the side, and silly me almost wiped it off, but thankfully smart me decided to leave it because it looked really cool:








Well, as you can see, all went surprisingly very well, and all without any drama whatsoever (I could hardly believe it)! I must confess that I went into it with a fair bit of trepidation because of all the beeswax 'horror-story' threads that I spent a few days reading beforehand, but all the horror stories (and the success stories, too) helped me to perfect my plan of attack.

After beveling the soap today, I washed my hands while I still had soap residue on them, and it bubbled up real nice. I had been concerned that the amount of beeswax that I added would kill my lather, but with the honey in there, as well as my 28% of bubbly oils, it had no problem lathering just from that little bit if residue. And my hands felt so nice an hydrated after that I didn't even need to put lotion on! Cool bees! Er, I mean cool beans! lol

Needless to say, this went so well that I'm going to make another batch of it tonight (because a mere 4 bars just isn't enough, now that I know it's good!).

If anyone wants to know my plan of attack, I'll be happy to share, but right now, I have to go eat something! I'm famished!


IrishLass


----------



## shunt2011

Those turned out awesome!  Love them.  They almost look edible.


----------



## spenny92

I can't see the photo for some reason. 

EDIT: I can see it now - looks great!


----------



## cmzaha

:-( I can't see the picture


----------



## Obsidian

Edit: I can now.


----------



## IrishLass

spenny92 said:


> I can't see the photo for some reason.


 
Hmmm... that is very curious. The reason why I say that is because yesterday, when I clicked onto your thread entitled, 'My soaps so far', I couldn't see any of _your_ pictures either. lol Well... none except for the very last one in your post for some strange reason. I just figured that maybe you had removed all the others or something.

.... I just clicked on your thread again and I still could only see the last pic. Hmmm- I wonder what the deal is.....

Anyone computer-savvy out there know? (feel free to chime in)


IrishLass 

Edited to add: Yay! Y'all must've been posting while I was still writing. lol


----------



## nogud247

That looks amazing! Nice soap.


----------



## DeeAnna

Lovely results, Irish Lass -- very well done!


----------



## commoncenz

If you can't see the picture, try refreshing/reloading the page. I couldn't see it at first either. Refreshed and BINGO!


----------



## navigator9

Couldn't see the pic, refreshed, still no pic, refreshed again......finally! It was worth it, what lovely soap. It really looks like honey is dripping down the sides. Love it!!!


----------



## Obsidian

Ha, the picture has disappeared on me again lol. I love the "honey" topping, looks really nice with the honey comb pattern.


----------



## Rowan

They look amazing, really gorgeous and I love the honey effect. It looks so scrumptious, it makes me want to lick the honey right off the bars!!!

I tried beeswax before and it made lovely hard bars of soap, with great lather too!  i've got one bar left.  Now I can't wait to try it again! Great idea about the honey though, I remember I soaped a bit hotter than usual with the beeswax.  Can't wait to try this now!!


----------



## MrsSpaceship

Oooh that looks delicious!  A soaping instructor told me that she prefers using beeswax over SL to harden her bars.  I've only used SL once but I'm curious as to how they compare.


----------



## TeresaT

Bee-utiful soaps.  Very clever idea.  Love the drips.


----------



## osso

Love what you did with the m+p. So pretty!


----------



## IrishLass

Thank you everyone! I just had the pic disappear on me, too, but it came right back when I hit refresh. 



Rowan said:


> Great idea about the honey though, I remember I soaped a bit hotter than usual with the beeswax. Can't wait to try this now!!


 
I got the idea to fill the holes from new member slipknot76 in a another thread (only slipknot's original desire/thought/idea was to maybe use real honey in the holes). WSP's honey M&P is perfect for this. Not only is it the right color, but WSP's site says it has real honey in it. Win/win!

My plan of attack when making this batch:

1) Working from my room-temp mastertbatch 50% lye solution, I weighed out the required amount of 50% solution for my batch into a measuring cup and set aside. 

2) In a separate measuring cup, I weighed out the required extra water (room temp) to bring my total lye/water solution to a 33% concentration, then I added the honey to this extra water amount and stirred to dissolve.

3) Added my room temp honey water directly to my waiting room temp 50% lye solution. This is the way I always mix my honey, btw, because when I do, I never get weeping honey or honey dots in my soap. When both are combined together like this at room temp in the exact manner that I just spelled out, the mixture will turn very dark and get hot (mine reached a peak of 161F/71C), but I never experience any violent reactions like volcanoes or hissing or anything like that. _However_- if you were to pour dry lye directly into a pitcher of honey water - watch out. It'll hiss and spit and volcano some (been there done that once, have never done it again, lol) Oh, another bonus of doing it this way is that I never experience overheating in my soap as it goes through gel. It's like the lye solution takes the ornery fire right out of the honey. Set honey/lye solution aside (covered).

4) Meanwhile, in my stainless soaping pot, I weighed together my beeswax, all my hard fats, and also my coconut oil, and then set the pot on my burner (set on med-low) to melt everything. My liquid oils were kept aside in a bowl to add later. It took 13 minutes for everything to melt completely and the temp was 200F/93C.

5) Added my room temp liquid oils to the pot (still on the heat). Things clouded up just a titch, but soon cleared up. Temp was 154F/68F. Decided to keep it on the heat until it reached 171F/77C and then let it slowly cool down.

6) When it reached 171F/77C, I removed the pot from heat and added my FO at this time (it has an FP of 200F/93C). I figured I'd add it now so it couldn't take the temp down too far as to cloud things and screw things up later. Set my pot in the sink for things to cool down because lots of the 'successful' posts I read said to let it cool down to somewhere between 110F/42C - 120F/49C. I decided to shoot for 115F/46C.

7) This took 44 minutes, but it was beginning to cloud a little at that temp, so I brought the pot over to the stove to heat until the cloudiness was gone. Four minutes later, all cloudiness was gone and the temp read 122F/50C. My honey/lye solution was 114F/45C at this time.

8 ) Decided to go for it right then and there. Slowly hand-stirred in my honey/lye solution. No drama whatsoever. Took temp of my batter: 117F/47C.

9) Continued hand-stirring (no stick-blending at all) and in 10 minutes I had a lovely, drama-free, medium-thick trace.

10) Poured into my wood mold and took temp- 108F/42C. Then I placed bubble wrap on the surface, covered my mold with it's accompanying wood cover, insulated with 3 cloth diapers (clean, of course), and placed in my warm 90F/32C garage to sit overnight. I checked it a few times before going to bed, but there was no drama, so I just let it alone and finally went to bed 3 hours after pour. 

11) Next morning, checked. Sometime during the night it had completely gelled, but there were no cracks or any other weird things to write home about. All looked great. 

And you know the rest of the story.


IrishLass


----------



## galaxyMLP

Wow! Beautiful! I love the MP dripping. 

Thank you so much for your detailed explanation!


----------



## KristaY

Gorgeous work, IL! The dripping "honey" is a stroke of genius which makes it more amazing. Love it!!!


----------



## Val-11

I wish I could smell it! It looks great!


----------



## ngian

A very good looking soap. Well done.

But I think that 6% SF might be a little too much as you have also added honey and it might take the SF to a bigger % (maybe 10%). I'm telling you that because you also use lower SF when you make 100%CO soap while using coconut milk instead of water, and you take the SF from 20% to 12%.

As it concerns about the weird behavior of the image (which I also had the same problem in my first page load), it might be for the reason that you haven't got a domain name for your site where your image is, but only an IP with a port number.

Nikos


----------



## TVivian

That soap looks delectable! It's gorgeous, and I love that fragrance!


----------



## spenny92

ngian said:


> A very good looking soap. Well done.
> 
> But I think that 6% SF might be a little too much as you have also added honey and it might take the SF to a bigger % (maybe 10%). I'm telling you that because you also use lower SF when you make 100%CO soap while using coconut milk instead of water, and you take the SF from 20% to 12%.
> 
> As it concerns about the weird behavior of the image (which I also had the same problem in my first page load), it might be for the reason that you haven't got a domain name for your site where your image is, but only an IP with a port number.
> 
> Nikos



That might work for you, but not for everyone.

I don't adjust my SF when I use milk, cream, honey, etc. When I use goat's milk, I keep my SF at 7% because that's how I like it. Same when I use coconut cream in salt bars/100% CO soaps - I keep the SF at 20% and I love it.


----------



## Sonya-m

That looks amazing!! I've just ordered some beeswax - I know exactly how I will be using it now!! 

I'm confused about the post regarding an increase in SF by using honey - how does honey increase the SF, does it contain oil??


----------



## ngian

Sonya-m said:


> I'm confused about the post regarding an increase in SF by using honey - how does honey increase the SF, does it contain oil??



It contains reducing sugars (fructose and glucose) as DeeAnna has stated, that react with lye maybe before lye reacts with the oils.

Read from here and beyond: http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?p=514934#post514934


----------



## The Efficacious Gentleman

Fructose is only about 40% of the total honey weight, so it would have upped the sf a little (about 2%)


----------



## Sonya-m

Thanks both - I didn't know that about certain sugars. Love that soap making is an ongoing education


----------



## ngian

The Efficacious Gentleman said:


> Fructose is only about 40% of the total honey weight, so it would have upped the sf a little (about 2%)



Hello TEG and thank you for your numbers, but how did you do the math?

If IL used around 25grams of honey ( 5% ppo) you are saying that around 10gr is fructose and that will eat 2% of the total unknown weight of lye that was used. Is there any report that says how much lye is eaten by a gram of fructose?

I don't want to be a nerd, I just like to read some evidence (just like Kevin Dunn has done for goat milk) before getting some exact numbers...

Hopefully I will not be misunderstood.

Nikos


----------



## ngian

spenny92 said:


> That might work for you, but not for everyone.
> 
> I don't adjust my SF when I use milk, cream, honey, etc. When I use goat's milk, I keep my SF at 7% because that's how I like it. Same when I use coconut cream in salt bars/100% CO soaps - I keep the SF at 20% and I love it.



Hello spenny

I just asked IL how come and she didn't alter her SF this time that she used reducing sugars, as she had lower it before in her other recipes that also included reducing sugars...

I didn't insist that something is better the way I pointed it. 

Friendly Nikoshttp://www.soapmakingforum.com//www.pinterest.com/pin/create/extension/


----------



## CTAnton

what an informative thread this has been for me!
As a relative newbie to the soaping world what I'm picking up from Irish Lass' wonderful step by step process is the lack of a stick blender.I for one always grab that so automatically in making soap...makes me wonder how many soaps on a stick might have been averted had the stick blender never been used...
Another thing of note for me was adding the FO to the oils before the lye...just throwing these variables out to you all as steps that might be taken to minimize problems in our collective soap making...


----------



## The Efficacious Gentleman

ngian said:


> Hello TEG and thank you for your numbers, but how did you do the math?
> 
> If IL used around 25grams of honey ( 5% ppo) you are saying that around 10gr is fructose and that will eat 2% of the total unknown weight of lye that was used. Is there any report that says how much lye is eaten by a gram of fructose?
> 
> I don't want to be a nerd, I just like to read some evidence (just like Kevin Dunn has done for goat milk) before getting some exact numbers...
> 
> Hopefully I will not be misunderstood.
> 
> Nikos




It's based on the fact that about 82% of honey is sugar, of which half is fructose and will react with the lye. So 40% of the 5% (honey was used at 5% in this recipe) is 2% - essentially 2% extra lye reactant used


----------



## TheDragonGirl

Those are beautiful soaps! and this is a very informative thread
I've been having some problems with not being able to see the photos on random posts too, including this one, I just grab the link out of the source code and open it in a new window


----------



## ngian

The Efficacious Gentleman said:


> It's based on the fact that about 82% of honey is sugar, of which half is fructose and will react with the lye. So 40% of the 5% (honey was used at 5% in this recipe) is 2% - essentially 2% extra lye reactant used



It is a logical way of thinking but with my non chemical knowledge way of thinking, it seems to me better to convert those amounts in measurement unit of weight in the scenario of the fact that 1% of fructose reacts with 1% of Lye because 1% of Lye is different between two different oil recipes in grams. 

And on the other hand we must learn if 1 gram of fructose fully reacts with 1 gram of NaOH. Tried to search Google this one but with no luck so far...


----------



## Jstar

Oh my gosh those are ADORABLE! I LOVE the honey drips..stroke of genius! Bet they smell wonderful 

As for the pics/page thingy..do a CTRL+F5..it'll clear your browser cache {hard refresh}

ETA: You can also download CCleaner for free and clear all that txt data that builds up over time. {stay away from the registry tool in that program however if you are not familiar with registry issues...all you need is to run the cleaner }


----------



## jules92207

IrishLass this is a gorgeous soap. I LOVE it. Just amazing.

I'm going to have to check out that M&P. I haven't worked with M&P yet but you just inspired me!


----------



## IrishLass

Thank you one and all! I made another batch last night, and it all went as well as the previous batch (i.e., no drama). I haven't unmolded it yet. I'll be doing that later on this evening (I can hardly wait!). 

Nikos- Regarding my amount of honey and my super-fat- goodness me, I had completely forgotten about that thread discussing the different kinds of sugars and how they react with lye. Thanks for re-connecting me to that discussion (I need to add that to my notebook!). For what it's worth, though, I didn't bother adjusting my super-fat from 6%, because that's what I always use with this particular formula- even when I add honey to it- and it has always turned out very nice for me. I figured that if it isn't broke, don't fix it.  

When I lower my super-fat with my soaps made with 100% milk as my liquid, I basically do so because my resulting soaps have always turned out with diminished lather (which I don't like whatsoever- I love my bubbles too much, lol.) 

In comparison, the addition of honey has never given me the problem of diminished lather in my 6% super-fatted Bastile. In fact, it's just the opposite- my lather is even more bubbly (yay!)....unless I also happen to add 100% milk to it as well, however (boo!). In that case, I _do_ get diminished lather, and so I always lower the superfat of my Bastile to 3% when also using 100% milk, which does the trick nicely for me to get my lather level back up to my liking (yay!). 

The super-fat in my salt bars are a whole different story altogether, though, because of the different variables at play. I used to make my salt bars with 100% CO, water, and 100% salt ppo with a 10% to 15% super-fat. Although very nice, I felt they could be improved upon- especially the lather (I'm mostly all about the lather in case anyone didn't know....as long as it plays nice with my skin-type  ). 

Anyway, I felt the lather needed more depth. It was too 1-dimensional to me. Enter coconut milk. Well, I theorized that if I added 100% coconut milk to add depth to my lather, then I would have to adjust the super-fat down so that my bubbly quotient wouldn't be reduced (like I said, I'm fanatical about my bubbly lather, lol). But how much should I lower it? That became the question of the day for me (bear in mind that when I was doing all this adjusting, it was before Dr. Dunn and DeeAnna had shown up on my radar).

Moving right along, I had to keep in mind that the supporting star of my salt bar formula was 100% coconut oil, which though nice and bubbly, can strip the hide off a rhinoceros if one isn't careful to keep from going too low on the super-fat........

Enter in my salt amount. One cool thing about salt bars (for me) is that the large amount of salt makes my 100% amount of CO seem so much more mild/less drying. And the salt also makes the bar super hard and long-lasting....... But it also can inhibit lather....

For a good solid month or so I think I almost drove myself crazy theorizing and trying to juggle all the different variables around just to do something as seemingly simple as add a little depth to my lather (ha!), but to make a long story short(er), after all of my tweaking and balancing, I ended up with a salt bar formula that actually works beautifully for me: 100% CO, 100% coconut milk as my liquid, 25% salt ppo, and a 13% superfat. It's both bubbly and creamy enough to my liking, the salt amount and the super-fat level are able to balance out the coconut's cleansing power and make it mild enough for my skin-type, and it's hard and long-lasting enough for me.

Sorry for the length of this post. I guess the moral of this story is to beware of asking how I came about doing certain things in my soap. You may end up having to wade through cavernous tome!  I just don't know how to give short answers sometimes!


IrishLass


----------



## fuzz-juzz

They are super cute!


----------



## greenbarnsoaps

This is beautiful and so creative!


----------



## ngian

IrishLass said:


> When I lower my super-fat with my soaps made with 100% milk as my liquid, I basically do so because my resulting soaps have always turned out with diminished lather (which I don't like whatsoever- I love my bubbles too much, lol.)
> 
> In comparison, the addition of honey has never given me the problem of diminished lather in my 6% super-fatted Bastile. In fact, it's just the opposite- my lather is even more bubbly (yay!)....unless I also happen to add 100% milk to it as well, however (boo!). In that case, I _do_ get diminished lather, and so I always lower the superfat of my Bastile to 3% when also using 100% milk, which does the trick nicely for me to get my lather level back up to my liking (yay!).



Thank you for your long answer IrishLass. It helps me to explain in a logical way why and how these additives affect lathering.

From your feedback on honey vs milk additives it seems that honey adds more to lather than milk although it is used in lesser amount because of their chemical composition.

Honey, that is used in a small amount of 5% of oils in a recipe, has around 82% of various types of sugars (*according to this link* - fructose, glucose, sucrose, maltose... ect) that probably all of them affect the lathering properties of soap as DeeAnna has described it:



> Sugar like many other additives appears to increase lather by disrupting  the crystalline structure of soap. It basically works by making the  soap softer and more soluble in water.


So according to the above we added 4% of sugar additives in a recipe but with unknown amount of lye discount.

On the other hand milk although it is used in bigger amount of 30% of oils (full water replacement) it has (*according to Dunn's report*) only 4% of sugars (lactose).
So a total of 1.2% of sugars is added in a recipe, while there are also fats that reacts with lye eating up to 6% of a recipe's lye, that leaves more free oils that cut down lather.

That is my logic in explaining the reason why you experience more lather with honey without any prior lye discount from soapcalc, while with milk you must lye discount from the start so as not to loose your bubbles as generally milk eats more lye than honey while it also gives lesser sugars.

Nikos


----------



## lisajudy2009

I love this!!!  My question is do you have to adjust the lye when using honey?  I was a little confused by the different posts.  Sorry I'm new to the board and haven't tried honey yet! I made oat milk to make a honey oat bad.  Thanks.  IrishLass From what I have seen your posts and comments are always informative and helpful!


----------



## reinbeau

I have never adjusted the lye - but I usually use a 5% lye discount when I'm soaping with goat's milk and honey, so I think it's fine.  If you normally superfat at a higher level you might rethink things.


----------



## IrishLass

As I state in some of my posts above, I never adjust my lye when just adding honey (although I do when adding milk). If just adding honey without adding any milk, I just use the same superfat as I normally use for the particular formula I'm making at the time, which is either 6% or 8%.


IrishLass


----------



## lisajudy2009

Do Oats require a change?  I made oat milk and froze it in cubes so I could use it when I wanted, like the coffee I use for soap.


----------



## IrishLass

Speaking only for myself, I never adjust my superfat when adding dry oats. 

RE: Oatmilk: I only use goatmilk or coconut milk in my soaps, but if adding oatmilk, it would depend on its fat content. Most oatmilk I've ever bought has very little to no fat, so I most likely wouldn't adjust my S/F for oatmilk.


IrishLass


----------



## Clarice

IrishLass said:


> 5) Added my room temp liquid oils to the pot (still on the heat). Things clouded up just a titch, but soon cleared up. Temp was 154F/68F. Decided to keep it on the heat until it reached 171F/77C and then let it slowly cool down.



@IrishLass = why did you continue to heat your oils if you were aiming for a "mixing" temp of between 110F and 120F?

Thank you - have been wanting to make honey soap and now that I know about master batching lye - full speed ahead!


----------



## IrishLass

Hi Clarice- because I wanted to make sure all was a good, melded, cohesive mix, acting as a single unit, if you will, before bringing down to my desired soaping temp. My soaping mentors taught me to heat combos of oil/fat/wax  higher than they need to be and then slowly back down before soaping because there was less chance of the harder things like beeswax/butters separating or precipitating out of the mix that way. So far, it's been working for me. 


IrishLass


----------



## amd

IrishLass said:


> My soaping mentors taught me to heat combos of oil/fat/wax higher than they need to be and then slowly back down before soaping because there was less chance of the harder things like beeswax/butters separating or precipitating out of the mix that way.



Excellent advice! This is what I do with my oils masterbatch otherwise I had problems with cocoa butter settling into chunks.


----------



## SunRiseArts

Gorgeous.  Very clever on the dripping 'honey', and the props!


----------



## highnoon

That is some STELLAR looking soap!


----------



## IrishLass

Thank you!  It's a fun soap to make.


IrishLass


----------



## Appalasia

IrishLass said:


> This is my experimental honey & beeswax soap that I made the other night, just as August 11 was turning into August 12. I made a small, 1.2 lb sample-batch just in case any chaos ensued, as I didn't want a bigger batch to be ruined, if you know what I mean.  Although I'm quite used to soaping with honey, beeswax, on the other hand, is new territory for me.
> 
> I used beeswax as 3% of my formula along with the oils/fats (the pellet form from Peak's- the kind that still smells like the hive- heavenly!). And I used 5% honey ppo, which was just a little over 1 tbsp. for my batch size.
> 
> For my formula, I just used my favorite Bastile recipe with 50% OO, using a 33% lye concentration and superfatted @ 6%.
> 
> And I scented it with .3oz ppo of Wild Mountain Honey from Peaks (2% usage rate).
> 
> Oh, and I laid bubble-wrap on the surface of my batter.
> 
> After cutting and beveling today, I melted down some of WSP's Honey M&P in a double boiler and used one of those 'pinch-size' measuring spoons to fill the holes up (spraying the surface of the soap with alcohol first). Some of the M&P dripped down the side, and silly me almost wiped it off, but thankfully smart me decided to leave it because it looked really cool:
> View attachment 28567
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Well, as you can see, all went surprisingly very well, and all without any drama whatsoever (I could hardly believe it)! I must confess that I went into it with a fair bit of trepidation because of all the beeswax 'horror-story' threads that I spent a few days reading beforehand, but all the horror stories (and the success stories, too) helped me to perfect my plan of attack.
> 
> After beveling the soap today, I washed my hands while I still had soap residue on them, and it bubbled up real nice. I had been concerned that the amount of beeswax that I added would kill my lather, but with the honey in there, as well as my 28% of bubbly oils, it had no problem lathering just from that little bit if residue. And my hands felt so nice an hydrated after that I didn't even need to put lotion on! Cool bees! Er, I mean cool beans! lol
> 
> Needless to say, this went so well that I'm going to make another batch of it tonight (because a mere 4 bars just isn't enough, now that I know it's good!).
> 
> If anyone wants to know my plan of attack, I'll be happy to share, but right now, I have to go eat something! I'm famished!
> 
> 
> IrishLass


Beautiful!!!! I want to eat them, i love the honey drips!


----------



## IrishLass

Thank you! 


IrishLass ")


----------



## MGM

I know this started as an old thread, but @Dawni  just sent me here (well she sent someone else here and I tagged along) and I know @IrishLass is still around....I loved the level of detail in your initial post, because then I can replicate it step-by-step and not have to second-guess any decisions (except I'm going to increase batch size and use my slab mould...see?? already 2 divergences!). BUT, I'm wondering if you wouldn't mind linking/pointing out your "favourite Bastille recipe" that you used. I see % OO and lye concentration, but what other oils?? I must follow directions and leave nothing to chance! THANKS


----------



## IrishLass

Hi MGM- I'm sure you can use any recipe along with the steps lined out, but for what it's worth, here is my favorite Bastille recipe:

50% OO (I use the Kirkland Pure OO from Costco, i.e., _not_ the virgin OO) 
15% hydrogenated PKO flakes
13% coconut oil
10% castor oil
6% rice bran oil
6% cocoa butter

If you don't have any rice bran oil, no worries- you can just throw the extra 6% over to the OO. I know it seems so redundant to have it in there at such a small %, but way back when I was experimenting with Bastille formulas, my favorite had more OO in it than 50%, but I wanted to cut down some on the oleic snot, and subbing in a little of the rice bran for it seem to help.


IrishLass


----------



## MGM

IrishLass said:


> Hi MGM- I'm sure you can use any recipe along with the steps lined out, but for what it's worth, here is my favorite Bastille recipe:
> 
> 50% OO (I use the Kirkland Pure OO from Costco, i.e., _not_ the virgin OO)
> 15% hydrogenated PKO flakes
> 13% coconut oil
> 10% castor oil
> 6% rice bran oil
> 6% cocoa butter
> 
> If you don't have any rice bran oil, no worries- you can just throw the extra 6% over to the OO. I know it seems so redundant to have it in there at such a small %, but way back when I was experimenting with Bastille formulas, my favorite had more OO in it than 50%, but I wanted to cut down some on the oleic snot, and subbing in a little of the rice bran for it seem to help.
> 
> 
> IrishLass


Thank you @IrishLass ! I DO have RBO, but what I don't have is PKO flakes...just PO. Does that work? What would you recommend there?
I swear that, despite literally having a fridge dedicated to my oils, butters, and hydrosols, I'm still missing one crucial oil for every recipe ;-)


----------



## IrishLass

Hi MGM....nope- palm oil (which is much like tallow or lard) won't work. PKO is very similar in properties to coconut oil, so I would toss the extra 15% to the CO instead.


IrishLass


----------



## MGM

Thank you! I'm on it! Will report back!

ETA: Hi @IrishLass , me again. Just looking at your recipe....5% honey ppo, ok I've got that, but your 3% beeswax, was that 3% ppo, or 3% of total oils?

I've also read through your detailed instructions and you make it sound so straight-forward, so I'm going to go for (maybe this weekend) and hope I have as little drama as you did.


----------



## IrishLass

Hi again, MGM! lol

It's a good thing you asked because I totally forgot to mention that I do a little tweaking with my normal  50% OO formula in order to make this recipe! Duh! The 3% beeswax is calculated as part of my oils on SoapCalc, and in order to fit it into my oils amount, I reduce the castor to 8% and the coconut to 12%.


IrishLass


----------



## MGM

Great thanks! I'm still gearing up to this one though...I think I need to read/watch some more videos about soap behaving badly, since you, an experience soaper, were obviously trepidatious about this one. I think that my sheer ignorance is making me confidant (wouldn't be the first time : -) )
Any info in particular you'd recommend I look at before trying?
TNX!


----------



## IrishLass

MGM said:


> Great thanks! I'm still gearing up to this one though...I think I need to read/watch some more videos about soap behaving badly, since you, an experience soaper, were obviously trepidatious about this one. I think that my sheer ignorance is making me confidant (wouldn't be the first time : -) )
> Any info in particular you'd recommend I look at before trying?
> TNX!



I can't think of any off the top of my head at the moment. If you follow what I spelled out fairly closely, I am confident that you'll be fine.   In the subsequent times that I've made this, my temps haven't always necessarily been the exact same as the first time, but I still get great drama-free results anyway.......for example, sometimes the temp is somewhere around 215F (instead of 200F) by the time my hard fats and beeswax are completely melted, and sometimes I've pored the lye/honey solution into the melted fats/beeswax when the temps of both were around  123F or so  (instead of the fats being 122F and the lye/honey being 114F).


IrishLass


----------



## MGM

Great, thanks! You sounded like you expected some drama but it never arrived, so I hope I'll have the same luck!


----------



## Tam3098

Wow! Those are beautiful!!!  Does the beeswax have humectant properties like SL or is it just for hardening the bar? and I’ve always added honey at trace, should I be adding it to my lye water?
Those bars are quite lovely!!


----------



## IrishLass

Thank you, Tam.  Although I've heard that beeswax has humectant properties, I mainly use it in this soap for its hardening properties, and also because it goes well with the honey in creating the special themed look for the soap. 

You can add honey to your soap any way you like, but I prefer adding it to my lye water because it prevents my soap from overheating and/or separating in the mold, and also prevents 'honey spots' and oozing honey in the finished soap. Those were some of problems I experienced previously when adding my honey to the batter at trace. I can actually CPOP my honey soaps through complete gel without any overheating issues if the honey is added the the lye water. That was never the case for me when I used to add the honey to the batter at trace.  


IrishLass


----------

