Cream and honey luxury bar
A rich, butter-heavy bar with frozen whole milk as the lye liquid, heavy cream and honey stirred in at trace, and a light frankincense and orange scent. The cream's fat is a deliberate extra superfat, for a dense, creamy lather.
- Skill
- Advanced
- Method
- Cold process
- Batch
- 1000 g of oils about 1593 g of batter
- Hands-on
- 1 h 10 min
- Cure
- 6 weeks
- Gel phase
- No keep it cool
What you need
For 1000 g of oils, which fills a 1.6 litre loaf mould. Weigh everything, liquids included.
| Olive Oil · 30.0 % | 300 g | 10.58 oz |
| Coconut Oil · 22.0 % | 220 g | 7.76 oz |
| Cocoa Butter · 23.0 % | 230 g | 8.11 oz |
| Shea Butter · 12.0 % | 120 g | 4.23 oz |
| Avocado Oil · 8.0 % | 80 g | 2.82 oz |
| Castor Oil · 5.0 % | 50 g | 1.76 oz |
| Sodium hydroxide (NaOH) · the lye, 100 % pure | 137.9 g | 4.86 oz |
| Whole milk, frozen in cubes · the lye goes onto it | 269 g | 9.49 oz |
| Heavy cream (36 % fat) · warmed with the honey to about 30 °C, stirred in at light trace | 140 g | 4.94 oz |
| Honey · 1 tbsp, dissolved in the warm cream | 21 g | 0.74 oz |
| Frankincense essential oil · 1.5 % of the oils, at trace | 15 g | 0.53 oz |
| Sweet orange essential oil · 1.0 % of the oils, at trace | 10 g | 0.35 oz |
- Superfat
- 5 %
- Temperatures
- Keep the milk and lye below 30 °C (86 °F) and the oils at 32 to 35 °C (90 to 95 °F), so the butters stay liquid
Method
-
Freeze the milk
The day before, weigh 269 g of whole milk into an ice-cube tray and freeze it solid. -
Get ready
Put on goggles, gloves and long sleeves, work where the air moves, weigh the oils, lye and essential oils, line the mould, clear a shelf in the fridge, and fill a bowl with ice and water for the lye jug to stand in. -
Melt the butters
Melt the cocoa butter, shea butter and coconut oil gently until clear, stir in the olive, avocado and castor oils, and let them cool to 32 to 35 °C (90 to 95 °F), no lower, or the cocoa butter starts to set. -
Warm the cream and honey
Stand a jug of 140 g of heavy cream in a bowl of hot water until it reaches about 30 °C (86 °F), then stir in 1 tablespoon of honey until it dissolves. Cream straight from the fridge would chill the butters into lumps. -
Add the lye to the milk
Stand the jug of frozen milk in the iced water and sprinkle the 137.9 g of sodium hydroxide onto the milk a spoonful at a time, never the milk onto the lye, stirring until each dissolves. Take 10 to 15 minutes and keep it below 30 °C (86 °F); it should end up a pale yellow slush. -
Strain and blend
Pour the milk and lye through a stainless steel sieve into the oils and stick blend in short bursts, stirring between them, to light trace. -
Add the cream, honey and scent
Pour in the cream and honey with 15 g frankincense and 10 g sweet orange essential oil and stick blend for a few seconds only, since cream and honey both thicken the batter fast. -
Pour
Pour straight away, tap the mould on the bench to release air, and smooth the top or swirl it with the back of a spoon. -
Chill
Put the mould uncovered in the fridge for 24 hours. Milk, cream and honey all carry sugar, and a loaf left warm would heat up and brown. -
Unmould and cut
Let the loaf come back to room temperature before unmoulding, so no moisture condenses on it, then cut it into bars once firm, usually 24 to 48 hours after pouring. -
Cure
Stand the bars on a rack with air around them for six weeks, turning them now and then. The faint ammonia smell from the milk goes in the first week or two.
Tips
- The milk and cream bring 59 g of fat that the lye was not weighed for, so the bar's effective superfat is about 10 %. That is the point of the cream: don't lower the lye any further.
- If the batter turns grainy or suddenly thick before the cream goes in, the butters are setting, a false trace. Stand the pot in hot water for a minute, stir, and blend again.
- Use cream of about 36 % fat, sold as heavy or whipping cream. Single cream carries more water and double cream more fat, and either changes the recipe.
- Expect cream to light caramel, a little deeper than a plain milk bar, because honey darkens soap.
The oils
| Oil | Share |
|---|---|
| Olive Oil (virgin / refined / olive oil) | 30.0 % |
| Coconut Oil | 22.0 % |
| Cocoa Butter (Theobroma Oil) | 23.0 % |
| Shea Butter | 12.0 % |
| Avocado Oil | 8.0 % |
| Castor Oil | 5.0 % |
How it is made
| Process | Cold process |
| Alkali | NaOH |
| Superfat | 5 % |
| Water | lye water at 30 % |
| Iodine value | 53 |
| INS | 150 |
Why make it
A rich bar for dry skin and for giving. Cocoa butter and shea make it firm and creamy, and whole milk, cream and honey add a dense, velvety lather. The cream is a deliberate extra superfat that takes the finished bar to about 10 % by our numbers, with cleansing 15 and conditioning 53. Casey Makela, whose book on milk soaps is a standard, writes that cream makes a moisturising cleanser and that milk makes soap creamier and less drying, which is why makers reach for it; that is craft experience rather than tested fact. Honey's sugars mainly lift the lather. Frankincense and sweet orange give a warm, soft scent. The caveats: milk and honey heat and brown easily, so it takes careful, cold handling, and it is not vegan.
Sources
- Making Natural Milk Soap (excerpted from Milk-Based Soaps) · Storey Publishing, 1999
What tradition, makers' experience and research say about soaps like this, each labelled for what it is. It is not medical advice, and no soap treats a skin condition: if you have one, ask a doctor or pharmacist.
What the numbers say
- Lauric acid 10.8 %
- Myristic acid 4.2 %
- Palmitic acid 13.9 %
- Stearic acid 14.7 %
- Ricinoleic acid 4.4 %
- Oleic acid 41.1 %
- Linoleic acid 6.8 %
- Other 4.8 %
Saturated : unsaturated 46 : 54
Computed from the fatty acids of the fats above. The bands are what the craft has settled on, not chemistry — a bar outside one is not wrong.
From the guides
All guides
Milk soap: goat milk, freezing and keeping it pale
How to make goat milk soap without scorching it: frozen milk, lye added a spoonful at a time, a cool mould, and a full recipe worked through the calculator.
Superfat and lye discount: why recipes leave some oil unsaponified
What superfat and lye discount mean, how the calculator applies them, where makers set them for each soap, and why oil added at trace isn't the oil left over.
Seizing, ricing and acceleration
Why soap batter suddenly thickens, sets solid or turns lumpy, which fragrances and conditions cause it, what to do mid-batch, and how to test a new scent small.
Where these proportions come from
After Makela's honey cream soap, which puts cream in place of part of the milk as a deliberate superfat and honey in place of sugar. Her printed recipe comes out lye-heavy by our numbers, so the oils and lye here are ours: a butter-rich blend at 5 % superfat, with the cream stirred in at trace instead of into the lye, where it would scorch.
Formulation adapted from Making Natural Milk Soap (excerpted from Milk-Based Soaps) by Casey Makela (Storey Publishing, 1999). The method and notes are ours.