Beeswax and honey brine soap
Who does not like beeswax and honey? The combination is beautiful with the soft honey fragrance coming through the soap and a hint of beeswax. The soap is made with a Himalayan saturated salt brine. To make the brine pink salt is added to water until the water can hold no more. When there are undissolved granules on the bottom, the brine is saturated and ready to use. The benefits of salt in a bar are amazing, and not what you would think. As a matter of fact, soap can be made of salt crystals too, and they exfoliate gently while purifying the skin and when rinsed off leave the skin smooth and hydrated.
Most brine bars are made with a high percentage of coconut oil, which strips the natural oils of skin. To compensate for that, a lot of added oil is left in the soap to coat the skin. For me, no matter how much you add after stripping, it feels to dry. So this recipe has low coconut and some really nice conditioning oils and has 20% of the weight of the bar in extra oils, to moisturize. Plus the beeswax is emollient, soothing and softening on its own. The bar has a high percentage of beeswax too, which can kill lather, just like salt can. If you have ever tried to lather soap in salt water you will know exactly what I mean. Pure coconut oil soap will lather, even in the saltiest water, which is why it is usually the base for brine soap.
So, with gentler oils and beeswax, in order to encourage the lather, lots of honey was added. Honey promotes a lovely bubbly lather.
Soap made with salt gets hard very, very fast. In order to pop it into molds, one has to work faster than the soap so small batches are better than large. I was not quite fast enough for the last 4 bars, but the bees molds were great. The soap was unmolded 2 hours after pouring and a regular batch of soap would take at least a 24 hour day to be solid enough to unmold. But the soap is not soap yet. It needs 24 to 48 hours to complete the lye and oil saponification reaction and then to become a better soap, it will need a long cure time. These were made for the Christmas market, so they will have at least 8 weeks. A bit longer, even a year or two, is better. However; as with anything, I will test the soap at different stages to ensure it is premium before selling it. Would you love a bar of honey and beeswax brine soap?
Most brine bars are made with a high percentage of coconut oil, which strips the natural oils of skin. To compensate for that, a lot of added oil is left in the soap to coat the skin. For me, no matter how much you add after stripping, it feels to dry. So this recipe has low coconut and some really nice conditioning oils and has 20% of the weight of the bar in extra oils, to moisturize. Plus the beeswax is emollient, soothing and softening on its own. The bar has a high percentage of beeswax too, which can kill lather, just like salt can. If you have ever tried to lather soap in salt water you will know exactly what I mean. Pure coconut oil soap will lather, even in the saltiest water, which is why it is usually the base for brine soap.
So, with gentler oils and beeswax, in order to encourage the lather, lots of honey was added. Honey promotes a lovely bubbly lather.
Soap made with salt gets hard very, very fast. In order to pop it into molds, one has to work faster than the soap so small batches are better than large. I was not quite fast enough for the last 4 bars, but the bees molds were great. The soap was unmolded 2 hours after pouring and a regular batch of soap would take at least a 24 hour day to be solid enough to unmold. But the soap is not soap yet. It needs 24 to 48 hours to complete the lye and oil saponification reaction and then to become a better soap, it will need a long cure time. These were made for the Christmas market, so they will have at least 8 weeks. A bit longer, even a year or two, is better. However; as with anything, I will test the soap at different stages to ensure it is premium before selling it. Would you love a bar of honey and beeswax brine soap?
the honey bee molds. You can see I started at the top of the photo and by the time I had poured all of these, the soap was already hardening.
By the time I got to these molds the soap was like very thick pudding and did not want to cooperate.
These were the scrapings from the pot and were too solid to stuff well into the mold. they will be cut into samples.
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