Beginner needing correct amounts

[Dana89]

I have to agree that using additive such as honey and beeswax may not be the best thing too do with your first batch. The first time I used honey I ended up with an overheated mess. Honey may help with your lather and beeswax does help with hardness but it also hinders lather.
If you are really anxious to use your own honey and beeswax I would suggest looking into lotion bars, sugar scrubs and lip balm. Then after you have a couple of soap batches under your belt try adding in 2% Beeswax and a small amount of honey. I do not like beeswax in my soap because it really does hinder the lather in my recipe, but you may really like it.
Here is a link to The Soap Queens blog with instructions on using beeswax in soap as well as other skin care products.
http://www.soapqueen.com/bramble-berry-news/sunday-night-spotlight-beeswax/

 

[wt168048]

I have to agree that using additive such as honey and beeswax may not be the best thing too do with your first batch. The first time I used honey I ended up with an overheated mess. Honey may help with your lather and beeswax does help with hardness but it also hinders lather.
If you are really anxious to use your own honey and beeswax I would suggest looking into lotion bars, sugar scrubs and lip balm. Then after you have a couple of soap batches under your belt try adding in 2% Beeswax and a small amount of honey. I do not like beeswax in my soap because it really does hinder the lather in my recipe, but you may really like it.
Here is a link to The Soap Queens blog with instructions on using beeswax in soap as well as other skin care products.
http://www.soapqueen.com/bramble-berry-news/sunday-night-spotlight-beeswax/

We have already gone the lotion bars and lip balm route with the wax and honey. With 33.1 ounces of oil do you think 1 ounce of honey and 1 ounce of wax would be too much?

 

[doriettefarm]

If my math is correct, 1oz of beeswax in 33oz of base oils works out to approx 3%. That's higher than I've used in the past (no more than 2%). I'm always paranoid about soaping hotter to keep the beeswax melted and potential overheating so I've never added honey to a beeswax batch. I'd also like to figure out how to do a milk soap with beeswax but it doesn't seem like a good combo. 1oz of honey for that batch size seems high to me. I think most folks use 1tsp - 1TBSP max PPO and again be cautious of overheating!

 

[Dana89]

If your going to use the honey you may want to put your freshly poured soap in the freezer for 12-24 hours, and start soaping at room temp, which is hard to do with beeswax because it has a high melting point.

 

[dixiedragon]

In contrast to many soapers, I have never had a honey soap over heat. (knock on wood). I use 5% beeswax and 1 tablespoon of honey PPO (per pound of oil), so I'm not going light on either of them. I also don't put my soap in the fridge or freezer. I have a theory that it's the combination of honey + fragrance that causes the problem, since most folks seem to use a honey FO or an oatmeal, milk and honey FO.

I also soap with lard, which I have found to be far better behaved than all veggie soaps. In my experience, when I use things like cocoa butter, shea butter or palm to make a hard all-veggie soap, the soap is just not as well behaved as a lard soap. I also soap with full water, which again slows things down and makes the soap behave better.

Here is my recipe:
20% coconut oil
35% lard
20% olive
5% beeswax
10% sunflower
5% castor

Do you have individual molds? If so, make a small batch, then use those. It is much easier to keep individual molds cooler and prevent over heating.

I also don't soap this cool. I'm not sure how that would work - you'd have little bits of beeswax in your soap?

I let the lye water reach room temperature, but I accept that the oils are going to be hot. Honey and beeswax don't seem to blend with the oils, they seem to want to separate, so I blast the pot of oils with my stick blender so everything is well mixed, then slowly pour in my lye water. Make sure your soaping pot is much bigger than your batch - about 3x bigger. That way if your soap overheats in the pot and starts gelling in the pot, you can just keep stirring and let it do its thing.

Google for pics of hot process soap so you know what this process looks like. It is scary looking if you aren't expecting it, but it's actually not a bad thing. Here are some pics. This is in a crock pot, but this can happen in a stock pot as well.

http://littlehouseinthesuburbs.com/2008/09/making-hot-process-soap-in-crock-pot.html

It hasn't happened to me with honey soap, but it has happened to me with some fragrances. I think what is happening is the soap gets so hot that the reaction is sped up a lot, and the soap starts to separate. So your soap will look like an oily, curdled mess and you may be sad and think it is ruined. It is not! Just keep stirring!

 

[dixiedragon]

BTW, I'm sure you've noticed that you are getting conflicting advice. That's because we all find a process that works for us, our particular preferences and ingredients, etc.

 

[TeaLeavesandTweed]

We have already gone the lotion bars and lip balm route with the wax and honey. With 33.1 ounces of oil do you think 1 ounce of honey and 1 ounce of wax would be too much?

If you've never made soap before, you might want to consider doing at least one batch to start without any honey or beeswax or scent or color, as these complicate the recipe. That way you can get the hang of calculating a recipe, weighing your ingredients, mixing the lye water, determining when your soap is at trace, getting it in the mold, and getting it through saponification without the added complication of additives that can cause problems.

Just so you know, I'm not talking down: I'm a newbie myself and I ruined my first batch of lye water! So not having to worry about color or fragrance made that much easier to deal with.

Then, once you have a basic soap formula, you can come back here and try out the recommendations for the additives you want to use.

 

[wt168048]

Hey everyone.

Here with an update. We have made 5 batches of soap so far and it seems to be going great. the recipe we went with was:

Olive oil- 45%
Cocunut oil- 28%
Shea butter- 15%
Sunflower oil- 12%
Honey- 1 tabelspoon
Beeswax- 1 ounce

have also been using fragrance oils. our batches are around 3 pounds so we use around 1.25 ounces of FO.

Here are the pictures.
The last two are Honeysuckle oatmeal.

Let me know what you all think!

thanks!

 

[IrishLass]

They look great! Good job!


IrishLass

 

[Dharlee]

I am impressed! Next test will come after they fully cure and you can decide if they are too hard, too soft, bubbly enough, etc, or hopefully spot on! Sounds also like you're keeping good records of everything. I did not at the beginning and Irish Lass caught a mistake I made in a recipe. It helped me so much. I am really happy for you! And I want to also say it's wonderful to see some folks that are trying to help our poor bees. I for one am really worried about them!

 

[wt168048]

Thanks everyone!

One question i have. the hardest part of this is making the freezer paper fit in the molds. so i looked around and found some silicon liners that are the size we are looking for. My question is, is there a difference in the soap when you use a silicon liner vs. wax paper?

 

[wt168048]

how would this turn out if we were to remove the shea butter. We were to just use Olive oil, cocounut oil, and sunflower oil. Along with the bees wax and the honey.

CO- 30%
OO- 45%
SO- 25%

thanks!

 

[shunt2011]

What you need to do is give it a try and see how you like it. What one person likes another one may dislike. Most of us tried a whole lot of different recipes until we found what works best for us. So, I recommend you try the same thing.

 

[wt168048]

sorry i guess my question is. What does Shea butter do for my soap and how will it affect my soap is removed. and what will increasing the sunflower oil also do to my soap?

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

That's the point - so much is theory and the rest is practice. Many people find no difference with Shea, some do - so only you can answer the question you are asking.

Are you looking to get a recipe for selling soap?

 

[Cactuslily]

one thing I'd suggest, is to make a copy of all the oil and butters that tell you what they all bring to the party so to speak, and what their profiles are with suggested useage rates. Knowing the properties of the oils and butters you are using will enable you to make a bar that is what you are personally looking for. As was stated earlier, what one person likes another may not. This is the beauty of making your own soap. And, as always, run your numbers through soapcalc even if it's another persons recipe or something you find online. Run your recipe through soapcalc without the shea and see what it does to your soap. Misprints can happen, and it's just a good habit to get into IMO. Most importantly, have fun! Happy soaping!

 

[IrishLass]

If you remove the shea butter and increase the sunflower oil, your soap will be much softer and your linoleic acid percentage (in the fatty acid profile on SoapCalc) will go from 15% to a whopping 24%. Most of us like to formulate in such a way that the linoleic % goes no higher than 15% (in order to keep DOS at bay).

But, if you were to use High Oleic (HO) Sunflower oil instead of regular Sunflower, though, you'll have a more manageable level of linoleic (7%).

This is just my opinion, but I like the looks of your first recipe with shea a lot better, even if you were to use HO Sunflower instead of regular in the shea-less version. The one with shea just looks to be a lot more balanced.


IrishLass