Oatmeal whey and honey soap
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Monica asked me in a comment to my Yogurt lemon soap for fresh morning:
What about using whey left after making cheese as a substitute for yoghurt? And done through hot process method.
I immediately thought about two things:
- I already did a whey soap, I loved it – and should definitely share the recipe – so I do just below
- Hot process is not a good idea for soaps containing any type of sugars (milk and derivatives – such as whey – included):
- this is because sugars will always turn brown if you heat them – remember how caramel is made?
- apart the unwanted change of colour (unless you go for brown), you will most probably have to face a dephasing problem – there will be a liquid leaking out of your soap (pretty much the same happens if soap containing sugars gels in a mold or you make it by CPOP). This is due to overheating – the water with glycerin separate from the rest of the soap. It is mainly aesthetic problem, small leaks can be discarded or eventually it soaks in, but if too extensive, the soap can be pretty ugly…
- worse scenario is that your soap will overheat and erupt from the mold
Before I could answer, Monica did her experiment and was so kind to share her experience in comments (thank you, Monica):
I use whey as a liquid to dissolve the lye. The solution came out yellow-orange.
In first faze of boiling the soap( at low temperature of course ) the oils and lye-whey solution separated.
I taught I ruined everything but I kept on boiling and after a while it came together again .
After 4 hours of boiling I poured the soap into a big mould because it was too crumby and the colour was and still is awful. But I made peace with the idea I will throw it away but not before trying it .
And for my surprize the soap is wonderful on skin.
I never made a better soap in terms how it works on the skin.
It hydrates the skin and leaves a little humid sensation on the skin and the skin is not shiny at all contrary looks like you put some kind of powdery make up on it.
All in one I am more than happy with this soap but very unhappy with the colour.
Whey is a yellowish liquid remaining after the production of cheese or the removal of fat and casein from milk [1]. It contains vitamins (B group, panthenol, biotin and vitamin C), proteins, minerals… but mainly lactose (milk sugar). So we are better to cold process our soap when using whey. Also, to keep the soap as white as possible, we need to keep all the temperatures rather low.
Soap containing whey will have a nice creamy lather and be very very soothing – as to my and Monica’s experience.
Now let me share with you my favourite whey soap recipe, which is basically a twist to the idea of well known oat milk and honey combination ๐
Recipe
700g olive oil
300g coconut oil
380g whey
141g NaOH (6% superfat)
At trace:
30g heated liquid honey
10g very finely ground oatmeal (for a very very very very gentle peeling effect)
2,5ml vanilla FO
2,5ml cinnamon EO
10 ml milk & caramel FO (don’t remember when it comes from)
Lye and oils mixture temperatures:ย lye (40ยฐC),ย oils (31ยฐC)
Instructions
- Freeze the whey to cubes – mainly if you wish to have the soap as white as possible.
- Slowly pour your NaOH to whey cubes. It will be very slow, but will keep the temperature low. Remember, if it heats up, it will turn yellow.
- Stir very well – the fats in whey will turn into soap, the solution will get thicker and you cannot see if the NaOH dissolved or not.
- As you stir, the protein hydrolysis can produce ammoniac smell [2], so don’t panic, it’s normal.
- On very low heat melt the coconut oil and then mix with in the olive oil – make sure you don’t overheat the coconut oil, you want your oils to be room temperature
- Finely ground oatmeal and heat honey until it becomes liquid so that it can be easily poured
- Pour the lye/whey solution to oils while stirring. Probably you will reach the trace quickly, but do not stop stirring, just to be sure.
- At thick trace add the ground oatmeal and honey.
- Finally add your fragrance oils.
- Pour your soap into mold. You want to keep it at low temperature so that it does not overheat, therefore use either individual molds or a wide and shallow mold.
- Sprinkle with whole oatmeal. You can put it in the fridge.

My soap just after pouring. Note the colour – I was impatient so I mixed the lye pretty fast with whey. This is CP soap that passed gel phase. Imagine what HP would do!
I did not put my soap in the fridge and it passed the gel phase. There was some liquid separated, which partly soaked in. I cut it after 24 hours, although it was still a bit too soft.
Now this is the best bit – I made this soap two years ago (I always keep one soap) and it is still without a trace of oxidation!
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References:
[1] Lecturerโs Handbook on whey and whey products.
This entry was posted by evik on March 21, 2014 at 22:30, and is filed under soap recipes, soapmaking. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0.You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.
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#2 written by evik 4 years ago
Hi Silvia! Funny, I have an almost finished post on different types of coconut oil (not only) in soapmaking :). Both refined and non-refined have the same type of fatty acids, but refined don’t have free fatty acids, which can cause faster trace. On the other hand, refined can have less vitamins, phenolic compounds, or other goodies – that is why they feel better on the skin. What survives of these in soap is a question. I know that phytosterols do, and I have read these are still left in the refined oil, as well as phenolic compounds (depends on oil type I think). I use refined coconut oil, canola and sunflower, mainly because of their price. Also the original scent of coconut oil does not remain in soap. I use cocoa butter for chocolate makers with nice cocoa butter scent, which remains also in soap to some extent. I also use unrefined shea butter which I love to buy in larger quantities, as I love it in all my formulations. Also it scents the soap. I try to buy organic palm oil – if any – for ecological reasons. For all the other oils, I just use what I have at hand – sometimes cosmetics grade, sometimes unrefined.
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#3 written by Monica 4 years ago
You are so kind Evik and I thank you very much for posting this recipe .
As soon as my batch of soap will come to an end I will make the recipes posted by you.
Although I am a fan of hot process soap making I willingly make this recipe now as I find from you how wrong is to bring milk products and sugars at temperatures higher than 40 degrees.
Once again thank you and I will follow with interest your blog in the future. -
#4 written by Ann Rein 4 years ago
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#6 written by sean 4 years ago
hi! very interesting! had a go today using whey instead of water in my soap. I froze the whey like you did…however i found that there we lots of crystals of sodium hydroxide left over that would not dissolve. i thought it best to strain those out as i didn’t want undissolved sodium hydroxide in my soap. What do you think caused it? any feedback would be most helpful! ๐
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If I may (I’m revisiting this now with a bit more experience) I use a silicone spatula when mixing lye into frozen cubes of anything. I put the small amount (always add in small amounts) of lye along the bottom of the container, then smear the lye crystals around via the back of the silicone blade. Slowly the lye will melt. Even when there’s lots of melted liquids, I am still always feeling for those crystals and smearing them along the bowl to mix in. So far so good, I feel no graininess after blending in the lye.
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#11 written by Kristress 3 years ago
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#12 written by evik 3 years ago
Hi Kristress, the soap is about 1.3 kg, you can double it without problems, just make sure it does not overheat (it contains honey and whey, which do accelerate the saponification). I recommend slab mold and do not put close to heat source to prevent separation of glycerin due to excessive heat and separation of soap in mould.
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I just recently made a batch of whey and molasses soap. I added the whey at trace, so it didn’t didn’t turn yellow/brown. But then I added the molasses so I don’t know if the color was effected at all. It did go through gel phase and I didn’t freeze it. Took about an hour or so to completely gel. It turned out nice and shiny and pretty hard within 24 hours! Some small areas seem to be lacking color in the soap. I suppose that could be some separation, but over all it turned out very nicely!
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Thank you for this informative post, evik. I used to have a lot of whey from making yogurt cheese, but I no longer make that now. It’s good to know though that whey can be used in soap.
I have a different question that I hope you may be able to answer. ๐ In soap, is there a difference between using regular coconut oil vs extra virgin coconut oil, or pomace olive oil vs extra virgin olive oil? Some say the more expensive virgin oils feel better on the skin. Don’t they have the same fatty acids? For example, would the extra virgin coconut oil be less drying, and more nourishing than the regular coconut oil?
Thank you in advance, and have a happy weekend. ๐