In addition to honey and hand cream I'd been wanting to try some soap recipes including honey or beeswax. I've been making this one for a few months now. There are about a million ways to make soap but if you want something simple and dealing with lye isn't your thing I get it. So to start here's a good one . I found this recipe originally posted by Heidi over at Happiness is Homemade on Pinterest. So many of these blogging home school moms make me miss home schooling!
Honestly, people, what did we do before Pinterest? Oh that's right we made huge messes by cutting pictures out of magazines!
Of course you know what happened. I took a perfectly simple 10 minute recipe and played with it a bit and here's what I came up with. Step one is to gather your ingredients.
1 pound of goats milk soap
3 TBS honey
vitamin E I use two or three capsules
1 TBS of calendula infused olive oil
essential oils you just have to play with the amount and combinations
a drop or two of food coloring or soap colorant unless you want a really white soap
...and a mold of whatever your little heart desires.
Here is the kind of soap I used. It's an easy peasy melt and pour item. I've purchased it from both Amazon and Hobby Lobby. It's super easy to use but after the first of the year I'll be looking for a supplier with a higher quality product.
But if you just want to do something today, this is for you. You could color it or add any scent you want. It would be a super kind of hand crafted thing to make and give in a hurry if you didn't add anything to it. Adding other things slows down the process a bit and if you want to add your own honey from your own bee hives you need to start beekeeping the year before.
Some of us are like that.
Or...you could just buy some local honey.
Then...
You break it up and melt it about 15 to 20 seconds at a time. You can also do this on top of the stove if you want. I try to heat it as little as possible to get the job done because I don't want to heat up the honey or essential oils unnecessarily. Honey and essential oils do not respond favorably to heat.
Once it's all mixed you pour the concoction into the mold of your choice. The possibilities are endless and limited only by your imagination. Okay, and whatever molds you can find. Here's how mine turned out and people really seem to like them.
Because BEES! Right?
If you give this a try let me know how it turns out!