beeswax!

[soapmaker]

Hi there Beekeepers- I'm sorry I'm not a beekeeper (yet!) but I would appreciate some help! I'm a soapmaker and live in central portugal

We have hives on the border of our land which my neighbour tends (and I plant lots of nice bee friendly plants for them!) I make soap and often buy in beeswax as one of the ingredients. But I do try to make my soaps with local ingredients (including my other neighbours' goats milk!) and would love to make the beeswax for my soap from my local hives.

I spoke to me neighbour about possibly buying some wax from them and they very kindly gave me this- link to photo attached! It's a bit tricky as although I do speak quite a bit of Portuguese I don't have enough knowledge of the process to know what it is and what i do to it to make it into usuable wax.
I can only guess I need to render it somehow?
Can anyone advise me please- as if this is the right stuff and i'm able to process it there will be more available very soon!

 

[soapmaker]

nope cant post my photo!!!
https://picasaweb.google.com/velagota/BusyBees?authuser=0&feat=directlink

 

[plumberman]

This looks as if it has been rendered already: you would need to scrape off the debris etc seen at the top of the photo, but beyond that it would appear to be ready to go.

You can filter it further to get a whiter colour, but it's a real pain in the derriere and presumably your soap isn't necessarily going to be a light colour anyway.

 

[soapmaker]

oh fantastic! thanks so much- yes i have dug a bit deeper and the texture is much better under the 'debris' layer as you say! i'm very happy with the colour- the olive oil i use has a very nice green hue aswell! (feeling a little silly for not digging into it a bit further- i really have no experience with this!)
but I'm very glad I asked! thanks very much

 

[Poly Hive]

Just bear in mind that every time wax is melted, for filtering purposes usually, it darkens.

Something to consider if lightness of colour is important.

PH

 

[soapmaker]

thanks polyhive- i don't mind the colour-the more natural the better! but if i want to purify it- (actually it is quite grainy) can i just melt it down and filter it? or is it a bit more complex than that?

 

[Poly Hive]

Teat it like chocolate, ie melt in a double saucepan, and then... it gets a bit tricky.

What some do is to find two cans that will fit in each other so that the filter acts as a wedge to stop the top can dropping into the bottom one, and put your coarse wax in the top, where it will melt or pour it in as molten, and then the filtered wax will be caught in the bottom one.

That is about as simple as it gets.

PH

 

[soapmaker]

wonderful thanks very much!

 

[sss]

Hi Soapmaker.

What recipes do you use for your beeswax soap? Is it any good as I fancy giving it a go with some of mine.

Sss

 

[soapmaker]

beeswax

hi- many thanks for your help- i successfully filtered it and its lovely
can't wait to make some soap with it now!

Sss- have you made soap before? i make loads of different recipes- but you should only use 5% beeswax as it does take away the lathering qualities if you use more- i do a combination of mainly olive oil- and add some coconut oil and castor oil and a little cocoa butter and beeswax. i find lemon goes very well with it- so i use beeswax in a honey, lemon and wheatgerm soap, which is lovely. (i also us goatsmilk as my liquid as it makes the soap very creamy).

if you haven't made soap before- do a bit of research first as using lye is a nasty business and you do need to be careful- happy to give you more info, or forward you to a site with recipes if you'd like it!

 

[MandF]

Slightly off topic, but does anyone know the rationale for every one of us having to submit exactly the same recipe for a soap or balm etc, in order to legally sell it?

Bearing in mind it is only the recipe that gets approval, not a sample of the actual product (and therefore someone not following the recipe properly could still cause damage)?

This wouldnt be so bad if the cost of getting recipes certfied wasnt so ridiculously high.

 

[Poly Hive]

Submit it to whom? Never heard of this before?

PH

 

[drstitson]

i wasn't aware of there being any regs regarding the contents of "cosmetic" products.

 

[MandF]

http://www.efchemicalconsulting.co.uk/cosmetic-safety-regulations.html

http://www.bakewellsoap.co.uk/sudslawlegalities.html

http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/biscore/consumer-issues/docs/guide-to-cpsr.pdf

http://www.craftsforum.co.uk/showthread.php?7752-Soap-Making-Regulations

 

[soapmaker]

yes you do need to certificate your products if you are selling them,
you can go to the soap kitchen if you want to know more about it- they sell the certification aswell. its not cheap (usually around £100) but its a one-off payment (not a yearly fee)- the strange thing is they don't even test your product!
http://www.thesoapkitchen.co.uk/certification.htm

 

[MandF]

yes you do need to certificate your products if you are selling them,
you can go to the soap kitchen if you want to know more about it- they sell the certification aswell. its not cheap (usually around £100) but its a one-off payment (not a yearly fee)- the strange thing is they don't even test your product!
http://www.thesoapkitchen.co.uk/certification.htm

The certification is for each "recipe", although they do allow an element of variability.. for example you can get a lip-balm recipe certified to allow different flavours within certain parameters.

You will need a certificate for each product you sell.

Which is why I asked the original question.. 50 of us could use hivemaker's recipe for lip balm, but each of us legally needs to have that recipe certified. It is ludicrous.

Oh, and by the way, I have seen someone who certifies for around £30 per recipe, but thats the cheapest I have seen, and that is still not cheap if you are using fundamentally the same recipe which has been certified thousands of times before!

 

[MandF]

Oh, and I think it goes without saying that there are labelling regulations which need to be followed. These are more onerous than honey labelling regs!

 

[Alabamaeee]

It seems odd to me that a supplier of soap making products is actually offering certification...

https://www.soapkitchenonline.co.uk/acatalog/Safety_Assessments.html

I would have thought that the finished product would be certified by a government body and not a wholesale supplier?

I've probably missed something obvious though

 

[soapmaker]

i don't imagine they issue it themselves- as it usually has to come from a chemist (& i dont mean a pharmacy!) the soapkitchen are really helpful and provide lots of different things for soapmakers and i guess they got so many queries about it they thought they could help by offering the service/become the middleman