tips for soaping with beeswax

[Emilee]

Hi, anyone got any tips for soaping with beeswax?

I want to make a soap with a good amount of manuka honey in it, and I"ve heard that putting beeswax in a honey soap will help it harden.

Any tips on how much beeswax/honey to use ppo?

 

[Lindy]

For a 5 lb batch I use 2 oz grated beeswax which I melt in oil & 1/4 C liquid honey.....love it!

 

[jcandleattic]

Also if you don't know, soap cool. both honey and beeswax are known heat accelerants in soap. they get hot fast!!
Good luck. sounds like it'll be a nice soap.

 

[carebear]

do soap cool, but you will need to heat your oils pretty hot to get the beeswax to melt completely.

do not try to melt the beeswax separately and add it in. three things will likely result - you will lose a lot of beeswax to the melting container (it sticks), the container will never come clean (LOL - well it'll take work), and the beeswax will solidify as it hits cooler oil, resulting in spotty soap.

to melt the beeswax heat it in a good portion of your soaping oils - I'd say at least 1/3 of your total oils, maybe half, until it's completely melted. Then add this to your remaining oils to cool it down.

I don't mess with beeswax any more - I just use a lot of coconut oil or palm or the like, but it does add a certain cachet to the label.

 

[beelady]

I keep bees for a living and make beeswax soaps as part of my product line. Adding up to an ounce of clean beeswax per pound of soap will improve both the hardness and conditioning properties of your soap. (Beeswax in larger quantities makes wonderful cosmetics.) Not only that, it will trace like lightning. In fact, be ready to stir like mad and get the soap into the molds right away. I combine my lye water and fats at a slightly higher temperature than for a recipe without beeswax so I have a little more time to work with the soap (especially if I'm marbelizing or swirling).

Your soap will not be white and it's best to use colors that go with yellow if you're going to add pigment. (I color some of my soaps with mineral pigments.) For colors like lavender or pink, you'd need to purchase white beeswax or you will wind up with grey.

A tip: add your honey to the lye water just before combining with the melted fats and don't be surprised when it turns red. Manuka has marvelous antimicrobial properties but I've always wondered how much survives the lye. As you might imagine, I make a honey soap. It's a really mild, nice soap and is very popular.

Your soap will be brown.

Bee well! And enjoy your soap - sounds like a good one.

 

[beelady]

Beeswax melts at 150º - higher than probably any other of your ingredients. Definitely put it in the pot with the rest of your fats. that works just fine.

To the soaper who had difficulty getting melted beeswax off her pot: boil up some water, take the pot outside, and pour the boiling water on to melt the wax. Keep pouring, swirling, and tipping out the melted wax & water until your pot is clean. This is how I clean my uncapping tank after extracting honey following the harvest. Works like a charm.

If for some reason you really want to melt beeswax on its own, you can use a disposable "double boiler" made of a clean one pound metal coffee can placed inside a larger metal coffee can with some water in it. My beeyard landlords save coffee cans for me for my candlemaking and waxworks. I use the one-pounders once and toss them. It's easy to bend a spout on one side.

Beeswax is extremely flammable and should only be melted in a double boiler or in combination with other ingredients (like fats in soaping!)

 

[Emilee]

thanks for all those helpful replies.

unfortunately i have learned the hard way, as I've had a couple of botch ups before writing this post.

first time I tried heating the beeswax with the oils, but it was taking so long, and I was worried I'd ruin the oils, so I took the beeswax out and melted it separately. then added it to the oils, but as someone said, it cools fast in the oils and makes little lumps. i managed to beat them out, but when I added my lye, my oils/beeswax were way too hot, the mixture looked lovely for about 3-4 mins, looked like it was tracing fine, then a few bubbles started, and I said to my little helper, quick run, open the door (we were in the kitchen) i got the pot out on to the dirt just in time for the mixture to boil over. oh dear.

also, I've been using 8 oz of beeswax for 3 pounds of oil, so I guess that is a bit much. my beeswax just smells so lovely i wanted the soap to smell nice too.

usually I soap with whipped soaps, so I don't melt my oils at all, but because I want to use beeswax in this bee and honey soap, I have to melt, and I find it so frustrating.

anyway, i did make a successful batch the other day, using 8 oz of beeswax and 8 oz of oil, 3 pounds of oil and a bit of gm, but its still a little stinky and i hope the beeswax smell will come through soon. lovely caramel colour

next batch i make, i'll use much less beeswax and melt it with the oils. I tried grating it, but its so so hard, i can't grate it.

oh the lengths we go to...

still i'm not going to let it beat me. i really want to get this one right, as i've heard the properties in beeswax and manuka are really good for the skin.

thanks again everyone.

 

[Emilee]

also, a question for beelady, why do you add the honey to the lye/water?

i added it after light trace.

a question for carebear, when you say soap cool, what temp should I cool the beeswax/oil to before adding the lye?

 

[Lindy]

I made a salve using beeswax - love it!!!!

And now I'm inspired - one more time - to make another milk-n-honey soap this time with beeswax.

I do grate my beeswax since it makes it so much easier to melt it...

 

[carebear]

Well, if I want to go super cool here's what I do...

I melt all the butters and some oil to keep the whole thing liquid (and beeswax if I'm using it - so at least half the liquid oils with that). Stir in my remaining room temp oils and let it sit to come to room temp. That's soaping cool. BUT if you have beeswax and/or other hard oils it may be cloudy at room temp, so I zap it just enough for the mixture to clear. Which is a bit warm.

Some soap the cloudy oils - but I've gotten inconsistent results so always have them warm enough to be clear.

 

[beelady]

Emilee, I add the honey to the lye water because I have found it doesn't combine well when I add it at light trace and the finished soap can have honey-filled voids in it. Have experienced this more than once but since I started adding it to the lye water just before combining with my melted fats, I have not had any problems.

I don't combine "cool" because beeswax makes the soap trace so fast that I've found that I don't want to combine any cooler than the melted fats just barely getting opaque around the edges of the pot. If I plan to mess with the soap in any way, like swirling it, I'll combine when the fats are still translucent. The amount of beeswax you are using seems very, very high to me.