My Experimental Honey & Beeswax Soap

[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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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!