Saturday, March 30, 2013

Honeycomb Soap Revisited

If you've been following this blog for a while you may remember that about a year ago, I wrote about making honey soap. Well, we finally used up that batch and, because it's such a favorite around here, I had to make more. But this time I've got a videoooo!


Honey is wonderful in soap. Honey is a natural humectant (meaning that it retains moisture), and its sugar content helps boost lather.

I typically use about one teaspoon of honey per pound of oils, but I bumped it up slightly to 1 Tablespoon (which is about 3 teaspoons) for 32 ounces of oil. To avoid honey streaks in the finished bars, I subtracted one Tablespoon of my distilled water and heated it in the microwave briefly to warm it. I whisked the honey into the warm water to dissolve it, and then stickblended it into my oils to fully incorporate it.


The last time I made honey soap, my recipe was 48% olive oil, 29% coconut oil, 17% palm oil, and 6% shea butter. This time, I tweaked my recipe a bit to 40 % olive oil, 28% coconut oil, 26% palm oil, and 6% cocoa butter. I wanted to see if I could achieve a harder bar by dropping the percentage of olive oil and upping the palm oil. And I used cocoa butter instead of shea because, hey, why not? It's fun to change things up every once in while and see what happens.

Because the natural sugars in honey can cause the soap to overheat, I soaped fairly cool. My oils were around 95 degrees F and my lye around 100 F when I combined them.

And I stuck with the same fragrance oil this time - Elements Bath and Body's Honey (L'Occitane Type), which smells uhmazing.

We are looking forward to soon having another batch of honey soap ready to go!

What are some of your favorite soaps that you always try to keep around?


32 comments:

  1. Wow, Jenny, the picture is so lovely, the soap looks good enough to eat. I use to add some beeswax too to my honey soaps, it makes the soap a little bit harder.
    But honey soap is one of my favorite too!

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    1. Thank you, Natalia! I've heard that beeswax creates a hard bar, but I've never tried it. That's a great idea! The soap does look - and smell - good enough to eat!

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  2. It really looks like a piece of natural honeycomb, I love it! The fragrance sounds divine too!

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    1. Thanks, Cee Gee! I love how the bubble wrap easily creates a honeycomb pattern. And the fragrance is so nice! It's my favorite honey scent so far.

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  3. Great video, Jenny! That sounds like a great recipe..I like shea and cocoa butter too. One of my favorites that I try to keep around is unscented goat milk, oatmeal and honey. I've just added honey and beeswax to the list...lovely lather and it's not draggy at all, and it smells really nice for being "unscented"!

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    1. Thanks, Kalla! Goat's milk, oatmeal, and honey is a great combo. I made a soap like that, too, but I also used an OMH FO. It was fabulous. The lather from the honey and the milk is so luxurious, and it feels so nice on the skin.

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  4. Great idea using the bubble wrap, it really makes for a unique looking soap. Very realistic.

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    1. Thanks! The bubble wrap is fun, and it's such an easy way to get a great honeycomb pattern.

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  5. Very nice Jenny! I love honey is soap. It gives the bars a wonderful scent and it's pretty nice bar of soap too. I recently made a batch with honey that I had to place in the freezer since I was afraid it would overheat! :) It turned out ok. Love the video!

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    1. Thanks, Roxana! Honey is one of my favorite soap additives. It creates such a nice lather and it feels good on the skin. I'm glad that you enjoyed the video! :)

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  7. Sorry -- messed up my first comment, Jer. The honey soap fragrance is divine and the cocoa butter addition sounds like a nice touch. I also like to keep some oatmeal bars around -- very soothing.

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    1. Thanks, Mom! That Honey FO is one of my all-time faves. I buy big bottles of it and always try to keep it around. Oatmeal is nice in soap, too - I agree, it is very soothing!

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  8. I like such honey soaps, the honeycombs looks very real, i take often the bubble wrap paper from my soap orders ;)

    Wish you a nice easter, here is very cold, cloudy and it snows in Germany ... egg searching in the snow ;-)

    Greetings,

    Krissi

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    1. Hi, Krissi! I hope you are having a nice Easter, too. It was cloudy, warm, and raining here this morning - not good Easter egg hunting weather! The storms have moved on, though, and it is nice out now. Thanks for the kind words - I love the honeycomb look from the bubble wrap, too. It's great that you can recycle your bubble wrap from your orders!

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  9. Love your honey soap Jenny, the bubble wrap really makes it look real doesn't it, beautiful chunks of goodness, I bet it feels wonderful on the skin too.

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    1. Thank you, Jan! I love using bubble wrap for my honey soaps. Honey does seem to add something special - it feels so nice on the skin!

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  10. I always hot process my goat milk and honey soap but your honeycomb soaps turned out so beautiful and grate inspiration for my next batch!

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    1. Thanks, Gordana! I haven't tried to make hot process soap yet. I've been happy with cold process, but maybe I'll give HP a try someday!

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  11. I finally found some time to watch your video, Jenny. It's great soap,Jen. I wish I could smell it, I like those types of scents in soap. How nice and easy everything looked in your video. You could have put another bubble wrap on top, what do you think? And I also like your mould!

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    1. Thanks, Maja! I'm glad that you enjoyed the video! The scent is amazing. I thought about putting bubble wrap on the top, too, but I am terrible at cutting soap, so I wanted to use my dividers. I could use a log mold and put some bubble wrap at the bottom of the mold and on top, and then cut the loaf like I usually do with my guided cutter. I figured the slab mold would give me a larger surface for the bubble wrap, though. I love that mold, too - it's an acrylic mold from Soap Making Resource(www.soap-making-resource.com). It's so nice not having to line it! They offer acrylic log molds, too.

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  12. Actually honey is one of my favorite ingredients :) and I use it in almost all my soaps. It makes a more moisturizing and hydrating bar.
    Now that I saw your beautiful honey soap, I remembered my honey and beeswax bars and I'm now craving to make another batch. By the way - wax is a very interesting ingredient in soaping, have you tried it?:)

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    1. whoops:) Now I got to reading the first comment and I got the answer to my question :)) Sorry!

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    2. Hi, Iulia! Thank you for your kind words. I should try beeswax in soap sometime, especially in my honey soap. I hear good things about it. Honey is one of my favorite ingredients, too. Honey and beeswax sound wonderful together!

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  13. Great video and soap Jen! I love that your Mom always posts on your soaps....my mom was always my biggest fan of anything I did, miss her alot!

    Blessings,
    Gloria

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    1. Thank you, Gloria! My mom is one of my biggest fans! :)

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  14. Beautiful Jenny!! I love that FO too!! :)

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  15. Great, I love a beautiful simple soap. I don't have a favorite yet. I do have a favorite ingredient which is clay powder.

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    1. Thanks, Marieke! I recently bought some red Moroccan clay and I'm looking forward to playing with it!

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  16. I was just at a craft show today and the table across from me was a honey man so we traded soap for honey so I can try making some honey soap. I'm glad I have this tutorial for reference! I ♡ your blog!

    Autumn

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    1. Hi, Autumn! Thanks so much for the compliments - I'm so glad that the tutorial is helpful! Honey for soap sounds like a great trade. I think you'll like honey soap. It's definitely one of my favorites. I hope that you had a great day at the craft show!

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