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Making Soap Using Beeswax & Honey - A Guidebook to Making your Own Beeswax Soap
The document provides a comprehensive guide to making soap using beeswax and honey, highlighting the benefits such as luxury quality and excellent returns. It details the soap-making process, including safety precautions, the roles of various fats and oils, lye calculations, and the importance of accurate measurements. Additionally, it offers tips on adding fragrance and color to enhance the soap's appeal.
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Making Soap Using Beeswax & Honey - A Guidebook to Making your Own Beeswax Soap
- 1. Making Soap Using Beeswax and Honey How Beekeepers Clean up with Value-‐Added Products Prepared by Landi Simone, Master Beekeeper, Gooserock Farm
- 2. Why Make Soap? • Luxury Value-‐Added Product • Excellent return for small amount of beeswax or honey • Fun to make • Adds to variety in product line • Smells great! • Like your honey, handmade soaps are of the very best quality – milder than any commercial soap – and you and your customers will become addicted to them!
- 3. How do Beeswax and Honey Make Soap BeMer? • All handmade soaps, even those with no beeswax or honey, are naturally 1/3 glycerin, a humectant which aMracts moisture to the skin • Honey is hygroscopic. Adding it to any cosmeRc increases that product’s condiRoning/ moisturizing properRes • Beeswax does three things in soap: – It makes the soap gentler on the skin – It makes the soap harder and longer-‐lasRng – It helps the soapmaker by decreasing the Rme it takes the soap to “trace.” (More on this later.)
- 4. What is Soap? • Soap is a salt of a faMy acid used as a surfactant for washing, bathing, and cleaning. • Soap is the result of a chemical process called saponifica)on. • Soapmakers combine various fats and oils with lye (sodium hydroxide) and water to create soap.
- 5. All Soap is Made with Lye • BUT, correctly made soap does not CONTAIN lye! • Transparent (glycerin) soaps are also made using lye and are then further treated with alcohol. • All the lye added in soapmaking, if the correct amount is used, is chemically bound with the faMy acids in the oils and fats and becomes…..soap! Only if too much lye is used in the first place will there be lye in your soap.
- 6. Basic Soapmaking 101 • WEIGH the fats and oils in your recipe, put them in a pot and set them to melt. Then let them cool. • WEIGH the correct amount of lye. • MEASURE the right amount of water. • COMBINE the lye and water and set it aside to cool. • When the lye water and the fats have cooled to the right temperature, COMBINE them and STIR. This starts the chemical reacRon. • When the soap TRACES, pour it into your MOLDS. • Next day, unmold and cut the soap into bars. Let cure.
- 9. “Trace”: What is it? • Tracing is a change in the texture of the liquid soap in the pot. It becomes thicker so that a spoonful of the soap drizzled on the surface will leave a “trace.” • When the soap has traced, the chemical reacRon has advanced to the point that the soap can be poured into the molds. • Beeswax makes soap trace much faster!
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- 11. Your Most Important Tool • Choose a scale that has the capacity to weigh the largest batch of soap you think you might want to make. • Accuracy to .02 pounds for larger scales or .01 ounce (. 006 pounds) for smaller capacity scales. • Should have a “tare” feature. • Should have an A/C outlet. • Should be big enough to securely hold your pot.
- 12. What fats go into soap? • All fats are composed of different combinaRons of faMy acids, like oleic acid, linoleic acid, lauric acid, etc. These faMy acids contribute different properRes to soap such as hardness, condiRoning, lathering. • If you “get into it” and design your own soap recipes, you will need to have a working knowledge of the properRes of the various fats and what they contribute to your soap. • You, can, however, make a great soap by incorporaRng several basic, important fats. • There are many excellent proven recipes on-‐line and in books.
- 13. Commonly Used Fats • Coconut Oil: Makes for a quick, fluffy lather. EssenRal in a soap that lathers well. Too much can be drying. Most recipes contain coconut oil. • Palm Oil: Makes smaller, long-‐lasRng bubbles. Makes a briMle, hard soap that is mild. • Olive Oil: Great moisturizing properRes. Poor lathering qualiRes. Soap made with all olive oil is “casRle” soap and is very mild. Use “pure” grade, not extra virgin. Used alone, takes very long to trace (someRmes weeks!)
- 14. And More Fats…. • Castor Oil: Makes a beauRfully emollient, hard bar of soap when used in combinaRon with other oils. • Palm Kernel Oil: Makes a white, very hard soap with great lather but can be drying if used in excess. Similar to coconut. • Other oils: CoMonseed, soy, hemp, cocoa buMer, sunflower, tallow, lard, peanut, safflower, jojoba, corn, etc. • Beeswax is treated as a fat in soapmaking. • We COMBINE fats to get the qualiRes we want. Note that the majority of the fats in your recipe should be SOLID (hydrogenated) at room temperature.
- 15. SaponificaRon Values (SAP) • SAP = Milligrams of potassium hydroxide required to saponify 1g of a parRcular fat. • SAP values are used to calculate how much lye is needed in your soap recipe. • Most “soapers” use sodium hydroxide (lye), not potassium hydroxide, so a liMle math is needed to convert the units. • There are many easy-‐to-‐use lye calculators available on-‐line: www.thesage.com or www.brambleberry.com are two websites with good ones.
- 16. Lye DiscounRng or “Super-‐falng” • These terms mean the same thing and refer to the pracRce of adding a liMle less lye than you need to saponify all the fats in your recipe. In pracRce, it means adding a liMle more fat than you need. Lye discounRng is a guarantee that you will not have an excess of lye in your soap. • Most soapers add 5% to 8% extra fat as a lye discount. Less than this risks a harsh soap. More will result in a soap that is sop or greasy.
- 17. Let’s Design a Soap! • Most soap recipes are designed by the pound, and then the “unit recipe” is just mulRplied for producRon. Let’s try: – 6 ounces palm oil (long-‐lasRng lather, hardness) – 5 ounces coconut oil (big bubbles right away) – 4 ½ ounces pure olive oil (great condiRoning) – ½ ounce beeswax (condiRoning, hardness) • 16 ounces total • This should produce a hard, mild soap with good lather. How much lye will we need?
- 18. Use www.thesage.com’s lye calculator: We enter the amounts of the various fats and oils, known as “fixed oils” by soapmakers, and hit the “calculate lye” buMon at the boMom, and….
- 19. Voila! Out pops the answer! We’ll use 2.36 oz of lye, a 6% lye discount.
- 20. Making the Soap Smell Wonderful • Many people comment on how great our Honey House smells, and are drawn to our booth at crap fairs and farm markets. • Use essenRal oils for all-‐natural fragrance. • Use fragrance oils for some great smells not available in essenRal oils (like vanilla.) • Be careful with certain spicy or citrus essenRal oils and some fragrance oils. They can make your soap curdle, separate, or seize. ALWAYS make a test batch of a pound or two!
- 21. Adding Fragrance • Rule of thumb: Add 1 tablespoon of fragrance/ essenRal oil per pound of soap • Use less for things like clove or cinnamon e.o. • ALWAYS test a new recipe in a small one or two pound batch. • Add fragrance to your fats just before combining with the lye-‐water.
- 22. Adding Botanicals • “Botanicals” are dried goodies like oatmeal, flower petals, herbs, ground scrubby things (like apricot kernel) that act as an exfoliant and/or make the soap preler. • Add them to the cooled fats when you add your fragrance. • Be aware that many botanicals will discolor under the acRon of the lye. Always make a TEST batch!
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- 24. Soap Colorants • Soap can be colored in many ways, or not at all. • Some use natural colorants like carrot juice or beet juice. Honey added to the lye water colors soap a rich brown. • Natural mineral pigments such as iron oxide or ultramarine make beauRful colors, as do mica powders. • FD & C colors are arRficial, but very vivid. • Some soapers even use crayons! • Colors can be layered or marbleized for a dramaRc touch. • All colorants are either water-‐soluble and added to the lye water or fat-‐soluble and blended into the melted fats. Glycerin is a good vehicle for pre-‐mixing both types. • Follow recommended usage guidelines for the type of color you are using. Do not use so much that the soap’s lather is not white or color comes off on a washcloth. In the case of soap coloring, less is more! ½ to 1 tsp per pound is a good starRng point.
- 25. Now let’s make some soap! First we weigh the fats. • The pot is the “tare.” It goes directly on the scale. • Be neat and precise. Accurate measurements are criRcal for making good soap. • Don’t walk away in the middle of a measurement. Many scales automaRcally turn off if lep for a period of Rme. • Put the pot of fats on the stove over medium heat to melt.
- 26. Next, we weigh out the lye and measure the water. • It’s a good idea to wear safety goggles and plasRc gloves whenever handling lye, even in the dry phase. • We usually measure 6 to 8 fluid ounces of water per pound of soap in the batch. The higher amount will take longer to cure but is less likely to do undesirable things like curdle or seize. • Precision measurement of water is not as important as accuracy in weighing lye and fats.
- 27. Pour the water into a thick plasRc bucket or container • Remember that once you add the lye, the mixture will get very hot – almost boiling! Do NOT use glass or anything that might break. • You can test a container by pouring boiling water into it and lelng it sit for a while.
- 28. Now we combine the lye and the water and sRr • ALWAYS ADD LYE TO WATER, NOT WATER TO LYE! (unless you are fond of explosions.) Remember: • “It’s always smart to add lye to water. Add water to lye, and you may die!” • Wear safety goggles, gloves, shoes. • Smoothly pour the lye into a thick plasRc container containing the water, hold your breath, and sRr the mixture unRl combined. • The fumes are VERY CHOKEY. Do not breath them. Do not let children or animals near the area. • It’s best to do this outside if possible..
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- 30. More Safety Notes • Lye is the scariest part of making soap. SRngs are the reason more people don’t keep bees and lye is the reason more people don’t make soap. • Lye is a causRc chemical that can burn or blind you. • Use basic common sense and you will be fine. • Adding lye to water is an exothermic process, i.e., it generates HEAT. The lye water will immediately heat up to around 200º. Water boils at 212º. • Even a slight whiff of the causRc fumes will set you coughing. Test the direcRon of the wind and stand upwind. Hold your breath as an added precauRon. Mixing the lye water only takes a few seconds. Do it and walk away.