soap

Lime and Honey Soap Bar

Cold-process lime and honey soap with green clay and citrus essential oils. Refreshing, conditioning — full lye math and step-by-step instructions.

By DIY Cosmetica ·
In this recipe
  1. Ingredients:
  2. Method:
  3. Related articles:

Come join the forum, ask questions, learn from others, and share your own knowledge with the community.




Ingredients:

  • Lime juice 280g
  • Lye (sodium hydroxide) 150g
  • Coconut oil 200g
  • Shea butter 100g
  • Cocoa butter 100g
  • Sunflower oil 300g
  • Olive oil 240g
  • Castor oil 60g
  • 1 ¾ tbs honey
  • 3 tbs lime peel powder
  • 1tbs french green clay
  • 32g essential oils blend (15g Lemongrass, 12g bergamot, 5g Geranium)

*** There is 4.80g of citric acid in lime/lemon juice. To balance the amount of citric acid in the lime juice, I have added 14g of lye to the original recipe (in total, it’s 150g of lye after the added amount).

Soap bars are the most basic DIY you can make. Once you learn how to work with lye (sodium hydroxide), you can make body soaps or dish soaps in many ways, colors or shapes.

I wrote a post with a recipe for soap for beginners, you have more information on the basics there.

Understanding how to work with lye (sodium hydroxide) is essential since it is very corrosive and can cause burns.

Always protect your eyes and skin while making soap. Use eye-protective glasses/goggles and gloves.

Adding natural fruits or vegetables to soap is so fun. They add colors and texture to the final soap.

In this post, I’m sharing a recipe for a lime and honey cold process soap bar.

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 1

You can support this website through the Buy Me a Coffee platform. Your donation helps me continue creating free formulas, detailed written posts, tutorials, and educational content for anyone who wants to learn how to make their own cosmetic products.

Running the website takes time and effort, from researching ingredients and testing formulas to writing posts, filming videos, editing content, and maintaining the site. Even a small donation helps support this work and allows me to keep sharing useful content for free.

If you find the website helpful and want to support future formulas and tutorials, you can donate through Buy Me a Coffee. Your support is truly appreciated.

The process is a bit longer than just regular soap since I prepare some ingredients the day before making the soap.

If you want, you can replace the limes with lemons.

Here I use lime juice and lime peels. The peels give an interesting texture and very mild exfoliation properties to this soap bar.

Method:

  1. Clean the limes.

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 2

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 3

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 4

  1. Peel the skin and dry it in an air fryer with dehydrating function or in the oven on the lowest heat.

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 5

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 6

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 7

  1. While the lime’s peels are getting dried, squeeze the juice of the limes and place them in an ice mold in the freezer.

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 8

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 9

  1. Once the peels are dry, grind them to powder. I used a coffee grinder. Save them in a container for later.

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 10

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 11

  1. The day after, start with eyes and skin protection.

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 12

  1. Weigh the frozen lime juice in a heat-resistant container.

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 13

  1. Add the lye (sodium hydroxide) to the frozen lime juice and stir until the lye dissolves. Set aside to cool down. I usually place the lye solution into my empty sink so no lye will touch anything else.

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 14

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 15

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 16

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 17

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 18

  1. Weigh the coconut oil and the butters in a pot. Place the pot on medium heat to melt the coconut oil and butters.

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 19

  1. In a different heat-resistance container, weigh the liquid oils.

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 20

  1. Add the melted oil and butters to the liquid oils.

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 21

  1. Check the temperature of the lye solution and the oils. Around 35- 45 degrees Celsius is fine.

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 22

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 23

  1. Add the lye solution to the oils. A strainer/Sieve is recommended to avoid little undissolved lye petals entering the mixture.

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 24

  1. Use an immersion blender to emulsify. Only use the blender for a few seconds to avoid reaching a very thick trace.

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 25

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 26

  1. Divide the batter into 3 parts, one part 2/4 and the other 2 parts 1/4 each.

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 27

  1. Add 2/4 of the essential oils blend to the first part of the soap batter. Add a teaspoon of honey to the first part of the batter. Blend for a few seconds to combine.

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 28

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 29

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 30

  1. Pour the first part of the batter into a mold.

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 31

  1. Tap the mold gently to release air bubbles.

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 32

  1. To the second part of the soap batter, add a teaspoon and a half of the lime peels. Add 3/4 teaspoon of honey and 1/4 of the essential oils blend. Blend for a few seconds to combine.

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 33

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 34

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 35

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 36

  1. Pour the second part of the batter into the mold from above.

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 37

  1. To the third part of the batter, add the peels, the 1/4 essential oils blend and a teaspoon of french green clay. Blend for a few seconds.

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 38

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 39

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 40

  1. Using a spatula, pour the third part on the top.

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 41

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 42

  1. Tap to release air bubbles.

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 43

  1. Let the soap solidify for 24-48 hours before unmolding. After 24-48 hours, unmold and cut the soap into bars.

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 44

  1. For soft edges, use a vegetable peeler to shave the edges.

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 45

  1. Save all the shaving in a confetti soap bar or the Whipped Sugar Scrub from Soap Scraps recipe.

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 46

  1. After 3-4 weeks of curing time, the soap bars are ready to be used.

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 47

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 48

Lime and Honey Soap Bar — step 49

Keep reading

More from soap