soap receipe

[manbee]

looking foe a good honey soap receioe

[ChellesBees]

This is a recipe I have used. It is also the same as the recipe that was in one of the beekeeping magazines a couple years ago. If you have never made soap before, go to a soap making website and read through the directions and all the warnings. I didn't use a double boiler, or distilled water, and I use a hand blender (sometimes called a stick blender) to do the mixing. I just melted the coconut oil and the beeswax into the vegetable shortning and then combined the two at about 120 degrees, then just added the honey just as it started to trace.
Honey Soap (Handmade)
12 oz. veg shortening
4 oz. coconut oil
1 oz. beeswax
1 cup distilled water
2 oz lye
1/8 cup (1 fluid ounce) honey
Mix lye and cool water, allow to cool. Melt vegetable shortening. Over a double boiler, melt wax and coconut oil together together, and keep warm. When shortening is 120* and lye is 100*, pour lye mixture into shortening and stir until tracing occurs. Pour wax and oil mixture into soap mixture stirring constantly ( the mixture will get VERY thick with the addition of the beeswax mix) When the beeswax mixture is completely blended, stir in the honey and pour into molds. Unmold after 24-48 hours. Allow to age for 3 weeks.

[BubbaBob]

The above soap will be a little light on the lye. Those fats in those amounts call for 2.48 oz lye and 6.46 oz water.

BubbaBob
maker and seller of 1.5 tons of handcrafted "boutique soap" per year

[manbee]

BubbaBob with out getting to involed what would be a good first time basic recipe you would recommend for me to try?

[MistyZ]

There's lots of info on the web for making soap. Basically you pick the fats/oils you want to use based on their qualities, and then calculate the lye with a calculator like the one at

http://www.thesage.com/calcs/lyecalc2.php

liquid oils tend to make softer soaps like olive, and solid at room temp make for harder soap, like shortening, lard, etc. The one specialized oil that makes a big difference is 76 deg coconut oil -- it really improves your lather.

Beeswax can also increase hardness.

I add honey at about 2 T honey for every pound of oil/fats.

For an easy first batch try looking up crockpot soap making -- you don't have to wait 6 weeks to cure the soap. You can use it right away.

The trickiest part is using a very accurate scale to measure the lye -- especially with the smaller recipes you're likely to try the first time. A couple tenths of an ounce could make your soap lye heavy so it burns the skin, or leave too much fat unreacted so it goes rancid.

Other than the accurate weighing, and being careful with the lye water, it's pretty easy and fun to do. Good luck!

Misty

[BubbaBob]

One problem with coconut oil...while it does make for a nice rich lather, there is no oil harder than coconut oil on the skin...will dry you out and crack you up like you wouldn't believe. I make about 1.5 tons of the "hand crafted, boutique soap" for the arts/crafts fair market and for health food stores around here each summer, to go along with local honey and some stained glass and wood art (glass is LOML's thing). PM or email me if you want more info. on the soap.

BubbaBob