How to Use Beeswax in Cold Process Soap

Here’s how to add beeswax to your homemade cold process soap recipes!

a honeycomb shaped soap with beeswax pastilles

Benefits of Beeswax in Soap

Beeswax is a great natural additive for your handmade soaps. Not only does it add label appeal, but it:

  • helps harden your bars of soap,
  • reduces the risk of soda ash,
  • and can help your bars of soap last longer.

(Note: These benefits are for cold process and hot process. Unfortunately, beeswax doesn’t work so well in melt and pour soaps.)

bars of beeswax

5 Tips When Using Beeswax in Soap

Here are a few things to keep in mind when adding beeswax to your soap recipes.

1. It will partially saponify.

This means that lye will turn portions of the beeswax into soap.

For this reason, beeswax needs to be included with the oils when using a lye calculator to make sure you have the proper amount of lye in your recipe.

2. Too much is not a good thing!

Beeswax is used between 0.5% to 3% of your recipe.

As you go over that amount, you risk creating a soap with diminished lather and a draggy feel on your skin.

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3. You need to use higher soaping temperatures.

Beeswax has a high melting point, so you need to heat your oils/beeswax to 145 degrees F (63C) to ensure that it’s completely melted and doesn’t form chunks of solid wax in your soap.

Likewise, your lye solution needs to be on the hotter side when you add it to those hot oils, so that you don’t cool the oils/wax down too fast when everything gets combined together.

Your lye solution should be around 125 F (52C).

4. Beeswax soaps reach trace quickly.

Because of the higher temperatures and beeswax content, your soap will likely reach trace in under a minute.

Be sure to hand stir more than stick blend and be prepared to work fast!

5. Not ideal for beginner soapmakers.

Because you’re working with higher temperatures and a fast trace time, beeswax soaps are a bit trickier and not recommended for absolute beginners.

Instead, try starting with my Simple Natural Handmade Soap Recipe, or Basic Customizable Soap Recipe.

Once you get a few successful batches of regular soap under your belt though, then you’ll be ready to tackle beeswax soap!

small bowl of beeswax pastilles and bar of honey and beeswax homemade soap

Beeswax Soap Recipe

If you don’t already have a planned beeswax soap recipe, here’s one on my website that you may wish to explore!

Honey & Beeswax Soap Recipe

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author, herbalist, soapmaker

Jan Berry is a writer, herbalist, soapmaker, and bestselling author of The Big Book of Homemade Products, Simple & Natural Soapmaking, and Easy Homemade Melt & Pour Soaps. She lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains with her family and a menagerie of animals, where she enjoys brainstorming creative things to make with the flowers and weeds that grow around her. You can also find her writing about gardening and foraging over at her family's website: UnrulyGardening.com!

4 Comments

  1. Never thought to use beeswax in my soap Jan but am going to try your recipe!!!!
    Thank you for sharing with us. (your tried and true soaps making recipes are my go to each time I make soap.)
    Yvonne

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