Happy Monday! Last week I played with adding beeswax to a 2# cold process soap batch. I used Oatmeal Milk and Honey fragrance oil, titanium dioxide for whitening my oils, yellow oxide for a second color to swirl, slow cook oatmeal for a scrubby additive and white beeswax in addition to my oils.
Working with beeswax can be tricky business. It is known for accelerating trace and overheating the soap. You only need a little bit-- about 5% of your recipe. Too much beeswax makes a sticky, gummy bar that inhibits lather. Beeswax is an ester like fats and oils, which means it can be saponified and needs to be added to recipe and go through the lye calculator just like if you were adding an oil or butter. This is unlike adding the oatmeal, which is a secondary ingredient who's purpose is to exfoliate and does not contribute to the actual saponifying process.
I added the melted beeswax to my low temperature soap (around 90 degrees F) as it reached a very light trace. I noticed the wax begin to slightly solidify at first (beeswax has a much higher melting point than the oils--close to 140 degrees F), but continued stick blending and it evened out into a nice, smooth texture.
In the Soapmaker's Companion by Susan Miller Cavitch, she adds the beeswax right in with the other oils so that it can saponify along with them, which I think I might try next time to see how that reacts in comparison to the method I used of incorporating it after the oils and lye had been mixed.
So, what's the benefit of beeswax in soap? Mainly, it adds to the hardness of the bar and the smell of honey is very pleasant.
Here is the recipe I used:
8 oz Distilled Water
3.38 oz Sodium Hydroxide (lye)
8 oz Canola Oil
8 oz Palm Oil
6.8 oz Coconut Oil
1.2 oz White Beeswax
1.4 oz Oatmeal Milk and Honey Fragrance
1 teaspoon Titanium Dioxide
1/2 teaspoon Yellow Oxide
1.4 oz Oatmeal Milk and Honey Fragrance Oil
1/4 cup slow cook oatmeal. Instant oatmeal will actually cook in your soap with such high temps!
Other supplies:
Rubber spatula and reed for swirling
Assortment of Pyrex measuring dishes for oils, water, splitting the batch to swirl, portioning sodium hydroxide, etc.
Stirring utensils for mixing lye solution
Laser thermometer
2 pound wooden loaf mold lined with freezer paper
Stick blender
Digital Scale
Rubber Gloves
Safety Goggles
I like to lighten up my oils with titanium dioxide before adding in the lye solution because all the stirring to break down any clumps doesn't change the thickness of the oils. I have all the time in the world to make sure the color integration is just right without worrying about reaching trace too soon. (Trace is the word used for the critical point when your mixture of lye and oils begins to thicken up like pudding. This signals the time to add fragrance and then pour into your mold.)
I also added a little more titanium dioxide after mixing in the fragrance once the lye and oils were combined because Oatmeal Milk and Honey does discolor to a tan.
Above is my mold all lined and ready to go. Make sure to have your workspace organized and planned out so that all you have to do is grab and mix.
Voila! My poured soap with swirl pattern and oatmeal mixed in. The beeswax seemed scary at first as it changed texture, but with continuous mixing, it was super easy to handle-- even enough to create a lovely swirl pattern. Mmm, and it smells delicious!
There are many choices of wax for candle-makers; from inexpensive petroleum-based paraffin to vegetable-based soy or palm wax. With it's beautiful golden shade, beeswax is a popular choice simply because it is easy to work with, it's all-natural, and it burns longer and cleaner than candles made with most other waxes. Beeswax is a substance secreted by the worker honey bees used for the construction of their honeycomb. It has a wonderfully pleasant honey aroma when burned in a candle. After spending so much time around fragrance oils at Otion on a daily basis, nothing beats the natural scent and ambiance of a basic beeswax candle at the end of the day. 
