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
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
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