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Shea Butter and Honeycomb Soap

June 22, 2026

Wayne Dunn

Last updated: October 2026

Shea butter and honeycomb soap bar with honey

Honey comb soap: what it is and what this recipe makes

Real honey, shea butter, cold process. Honey comb soap is a cold-process bar soap made with real honey and pieces of honeycomb, and Baraka's version is built on shea butter made by hand by the women of the Konjeihi Women's Enterprise Centre in Ghana. The other oils are coconut oil, olive oil and castor oil, and the honey and honeycomb, stirred in after trace, give an everyday bar for hands, face and body with a creamy lather and a warm, sweet character. The recipe makes about 4 pounds (1,814 g), which cuts into 8–10 bars, and the bars need 4–6 weeks to cure.

The recipe follows the fundamentals covered in How to Make Shea Butter Soap, with honey added for a sweet, comforting character, and it is one of the soap recipes that grew out of the Definitive Guide to DIY with Shea Butter. It rewards a little patience: the batter comes together quickly, but the real transformation happens during the weeks of cure that follow. This project suits anyone who has made cold-process soap at least once before.

In This Recipe:

How to make shea butter and honeycomb soap
What This Recipe Is For
Why Make This Yourself
Why These Ingredients Work Together
Ingredient by Ingredient
Before You Begin: Soap-Making Safety
Ingredients
Directions
Troubleshooting
Storage and Shelf Life
Scaling and Substitutions
Customisation Ideas
Essential Oils
Application Tips
What We Know and How We Know It
FAQ
Try These Next
Disclaimer

How to make shea butter and honeycomb soap

Blend to trace, add honey, cure. Baraka's shea butter and honeycomb soap is made by the cold-process method: a lye solution meets the melted oils, the batter is blended to trace, and the honey and honeycomb go in at the very end.

Add the lye to the distilled water (never the reverse) and let it cool. Melt the shea butter, coconut oil, olive oil and castor oil, then pour the lye solution into the oils when both are around 100–120°F (38–49°C) and blend to trace. Stir in the honey and honeycomb quickly, because honey can speed up trace, then pour into a mould, leave 24–48 hours, cut, and cure the bars 4–6 weeks before use.

Every amount is in Ingredients, with the lye calculation shown in full, and each step is set out one action at a time in Directions. Read Before You Begin: Soap-Making Safety before you open the lye.

What This Recipe Is For

Everyday washing, and bars to give. This recipe makes a rich, mild everyday bar, and once cured it works for any of these:

Everyday cleansing with a rich, gentle lather
A warm, sweet-scented soap for an indulgent routine
Replacing synthetic detergent bars with a traditional, hand-made alternative
A comforting, textured addition to a self-care routine
Giving as a hand-made gift once fully cured

Why Make This Yourself

Intermediate, 45 minutes, about 4 lb. This is an intermediate recipe: about 45 minutes of active work makes about 4 lb (1,814 g) of soap, which cuts into 8–10 bars after 24–48 hours in the mould and then cures for 4–6 weeks. The process is forgiving in terms of scent strength and mould choice, but precision matters for the lye and water measurements, so a digital scale is essential.

There's something satisfying about watching a liquid oil-and-lye mixture transform into a warm, honey-toned bar over the course of a few weeks. Making it yourself gives you full control over what goes into the soap: you choose every oil, you know exactly how much honey and honeycomb is in each bar, and the glycerin that forms naturally as the oils turn into soap stays in the bar.

Commercial honey soaps have real strengths: they arrive fully cured, every bar matches the last, and they are ready to use the day you buy them. A homemade batch asks for an afternoon, careful measuring and a month of waiting, and in return gives you a bar built exactly to your own choices. If convenience and consistency matter most, a ready-made bar is the sensible choice; if you enjoy the making and want to decide every ingredient, this recipe is for you.

Why These Ingredients Work Together

Conditioning, lather and warmth, balanced. This bar balances conditioning oils with cleansing and lathering ones, finished with warmth from honey. Shea Butter contributes deep conditioning and a smooth, creamy bar texture, and Coconut Oil is the primary cleansing and lathering oil, producing big, bubbly suds.

Olive Oil softens the bar's feel and supports mildness, while Castor Oil boosts and stabilizes the lather that coconut oil starts. Honey and Honeycomb finish the bar with a warm, sweet character and subtle texture. Together the four oils make a bar that is hard enough to last, cleans well and still feels comfortable on the skin.

Ingredient by Ingredient

Six materials, each with one job. Here is what each ingredient contributes to this particular bar, and why it is there in the amount given.

Shea butter, 16 oz (454 g), a third of the oils. Softening Feel: Shea butter helps leave skin feeling soft and supple, making it a good choice for dry-feeling skin. The butter this recipe is built on is Baraka's raw, unrefined shea butter, strained and filtered only, with no refining, bleaching or deodorising, which is why it gives this bar its conditioning feel and creamy lather. Its natural colour ranges from ivory through cream to pale yellow and varies between batches, so the shade of your finished soap can vary a little too.
Traditional coconut oil, 16 oz (454 g), a third of the oils. Drives the rich, bubbly lather this soap is known for. Baraka's traditional coconut oil is virgin grade, pressed from the fresh kernel, and in soap it contributes hardness and abundant lather. At a third of the oils it sits just above the 20–30% most soap makers use, which keeps the lather big; if you find the bars drying, see Scaling and Substitutions.
Olive oil, 8 oz (227 g). A gentle, mild oil that supports the bar's overall skin-comfort feel. It also slows trace a little, which buys you time once the honey goes in.
Castor oil, 8 oz (227 g). Stabilizes and enhances lather, helping bubbles last longer in use.
Honey, 2.1 oz (60 g). Gentle Cleansing: Honey and honeycomb give this bar a mild, gentle cleansing character that doesn't strip away natural oils. Honey is mostly fructose and glucose, and published research describes it as a humectant in cosmetics; in soap those natural sugars also add heat and help the lather, which is why the method keeps the batter cool.
Honeycomb, 0.5 oz (15 g). Comforting Feel: Both shea butter and honey are traditionally valued for their calming, comforting character. Honeycomb is honey held in beeswax cells, so chopped small it leaves faint flecks and a little texture in the bar; the wax also thickens the batter, so a small amount is plenty.
Sodium hydroxide and distilled water. The lye turns the oils into soap and is used up in the process, so none of it remains in a properly made, fully cured bar. Distilled water is used because the minerals in tap water can cause spots and affect the lather.

Where the shea butter comes from

Baraka's shea butter is made by hand by the women of the Konjeihi Women's Enterprise Centre in Ghana's Upper West Region: the nuts are cracked, roasted, milled to a paste, kneaded with water and boiled so the fat separates, then cooled and filtered. Baraka's founder, Wayne Dunn, has worked directly with the Konjeihi Women's Enterprise Centre for over 15 years. You can follow every stage in How is Handcrafted Shea Butter Made?, and the income, investment and carbon figures behind it are set out in Baraka's Social and Environmental Impact Report.

Before You Begin: Soap-Making Safety

Gloves, goggles, fresh air, no children. Lye is caustic, so the following apply from the moment you open the container until the bars have finished curing:

Wear protective gloves and eye protection whenever you handle lye.
Work in a well-ventilated area — open a window or work near an extractor fan.
Always add lye to water, never water to lye.
Keep lye, raw soap batter, and curing soap well out of reach of children and pets.
This is an adults-only project from start to finish.
Use stainless steel, glass or heat-resistant plastic for anything that touches lye, never aluminium, which reacts with it.

Ingredients

Makes about 4 lb (1,814 g), 8–10 bars. Weigh everything, including the oils and the honey: soap making works by weight, not by volume.

Shea butter, coconut oil, and honey for soap

Shea Butter — 16 oz (454 g)
Traditional Coconut Oil — 16 oz (454 g)
Olive oil — 8 oz (227 g)
Castor oil — 8 oz (227 g)
Sodium hydroxide (lye) — 6.7 oz (191 g)
Distilled water — 13.5 oz (382 g)
Honey — 2.1 oz (60 g)
Honeycomb — 0.5 oz (15 g), chopped small

The batter weighs about 4.4 lb (2,010 g) in all; part of the water evaporates during the cure, which leaves about 4 lb (1,814 g) of finished soap. Note: these lye and water amounts are calculated for this exact oil combination and weights. If you change any oil or its amount, always re-run the recipe through a soap calculator before making it — see the calculator links in Customisation Ideas.

The lye calculation

The lye is worked out from the weight of each oil, using standard saponification values (grams of sodium hydroxide per gram of oil), with about 5% taken off as a superfat so a little oil stays unsaponified in the bar.

Oil	Weight	Saponification value	Sodium hydroxide
Shea butter	16 oz (454 g)	0.128	2.0 oz (58 g)
Coconut oil	16 oz (454 g)	0.183	2.9 oz (83 g)
Olive oil	8 oz (227 g)	0.135	1.1 oz (31 g)
Castor oil	8 oz (227 g)	0.128	1.0 oz (29 g)
Total before superfat	48 oz (1,362 g)		7.1 oz (201 g)
After 5% superfat			6.7 oz (191 g)
Water, twice the lye			13.5 oz (382 g)

Honey and honeycomb are additives rather than soaping oils, so they are left out of the calculation, as is standard practice. Check these figures in a lye calculator before you make the soap; for the values behind them, see our saponification value chart and soap-making guide.

Equipment

Digital scale that weighs in single grams
Heat-resistant jug for the lye solution, and a separate dry container for weighing the lye
Stainless steel pot for melting the oils
Stick blender and a silicone spatula
Thermometer
Loaf mould that holds about 4 lb (1,814 g) of soap, or several smaller moulds
Gloves, eye protection and long sleeves

Directions

About 45 minutes, then 4–6 weeks. Work through these steps in order, with everything weighed out before you start.

Cut bars of shea butter honeycomb soap curing

Put on gloves and eye protection before handling lye.
Weigh 13.5 oz (382 g) of distilled water into a heat-resistant jug, and weigh 6.7 oz (191 g) of sodium hydroxide into a separate dry container.
In a heat-resistant container, slowly add the sodium hydroxide to the distilled water (never the reverse), stirring until fully dissolved. The mixture will heat up — set it aside in a ventilated area to cool.
Melt the shea butter, coconut oil, olive oil, and castor oil together gently until fully liquid.
Once the lye solution and the oils are both around 100–120°F (38–49°C), slowly pour the lye solution into the oils, stirring continuously. Because honey adds heat later, aim for the cooler end of that range.
Use a stick blender in short bursts, alternating with hand stirring, until the mixture reaches trace — it will thicken and leave a visible trail when you drizzle it across the surface.
Add the honey and honeycomb, stirring until evenly distributed. Note: honey can accelerate trace and generate heat — work quickly once added.
Pour the mixture into a soap mould, tap gently to release air bubbles, and cover it loosely with a sheet of baking paper; do not wrap it in towels, because honey soap runs hot.
Let the soap set in the mould for 24–48 hours before unmoulding.
Cut into bars once firm enough to handle.
Set the bars on their sides in a well-ventilated space to cure for 4–6 weeks, and do not use the soap before the cure is complete.

Troubleshooting

Most problems come back to heat. Honey's sugars make this soap run hotter than a plain shea butter bar, so overheating sits behind most of what goes wrong.

Problem	Likely cause	Fix
The top cracks, or a crack or tunnel opens through the middle of the loaf	The honey's sugars pushed the soap too hot in the mould	Soap at the cooler end, near 100°F (38°C), leave the mould unwrapped, and if your kitchen is warm, put the mould in the refrigerator for the first 24 hours. Cracked bars are still usable once cured.
The centre of the loaf is dark brown or caramel coloured	The honey scorched as the soap heated	Use the same cooling steps next time. The colour is cosmetic, and the bars can be used once fully cured.
The batter thickens suddenly after the honey goes in	Honey and the beeswax in the honeycomb both speed up trace	Add them at a light trace, stir by hand rather than with the stick blender, and have the mould ready before you start.
Sticky spots or pockets of honey in the cut bars	The honey was not fully mixed in	Warm the honey slightly so it pours easily, and stir until no streaks remain before you pour.
A white, powdery film on the top of the loaf	Soda ash, which forms when lye at the surface meets air	It is harmless and only on the surface. Cover the mould loosely, and trim or wash it off after the cure.
The soap is still too soft to unmould after 48 hours	A cool room, or an error in weighing the lye or water	Leave it another day or two. If it stays soft, check your scale, and do not use the batch.
Small orange spots appear during storage	Liquid oils in the bar oxidising in damp, warm or airless storage	Store bars somewhere cool, dry and airy, and use them within 12–18 months.

Storage and Shelf Life

Cure 4–6 weeks, then keep 12–18 months. Cure time is 4–6 weeks; do not use the soap before curing is complete, as it needs this time to fully harden and mellow. Curing lets excess water evaporate, which is what makes the bar hard and long-lasting.

Store fully cured bars in a cool, dry place away from direct sunlight — a drawer or shelf with airflow works well. Once cured, bars typically keep well for 12–18 months. Between uses, store on a well-draining soap dish to extend the life of each bar. The shea butter you buy for the next batch keeps 2+ years when stored properly, away from heat and direct sun.

Scaling and Substitutions

Halve, double or swap, then recalculate. The oils, honey and honeycomb scale exactly. The lye is recalculated from the oils for each batch size and rounded to the nearest gram, so it can differ by a fraction of a gram from simply halving or doubling 6.7 oz (191 g), and the water is always twice the lye.

Ingredient	Half batch	Full batch	Double batch
Shea butter	8 oz (227 g)	16 oz (454 g)	32 oz (907 g)
Traditional coconut oil	8 oz (227 g)	16 oz (454 g)	32 oz (907 g)
Olive oil	4 oz (113 g)	8 oz (227 g)	16 oz (454 g)
Castor oil	4 oz (113 g)	8 oz (227 g)	16 oz (454 g)
Sodium hydroxide	3.4 oz (95 g)	6.7 oz (191 g)	13.4 oz (381 g)
Distilled water	6.7 oz (190 g)	13.5 oz (382 g)	26.9 oz (762 g)
Honey	1.1 oz (30 g)	2.1 oz (60 g)	4.2 oz (120 g)
Honeycomb	0.3 oz (8 g)	0.5 oz (15 g)	1.1 oz (30 g)
Finished soap	About 2 lb (907 g), 4–5 bars	About 4 lb (1,814 g), 8–10 bars	About 8 lb (3,629 g), 16–20 bars

Swapping an oil

Any change to an oil changes the lye, so recalculate before you make the soap. These are the swaps that work best here:

Palm kernel oil for coconut oil. Baraka's palm kernel oil, pressed from the kernel inside the stone of the palm fruit, is a different material from red palm oil, which is pressed from the fruit's flesh, and in soap it gives a hard bar with quick lather. At the same 16 oz (454 g) it needs less lye: 16 oz (454 g) × 0.156 = 2.5 oz (71 g) in place of 2.9 oz (83 g), which brings the total before superfat to 6.7 oz (189 g), so use 6.3 oz (179 g) of sodium hydroxide and 12.6 oz (358 g) of water.
Sunflower or sweet almond oil for olive oil. At 8 oz (227 g), either one changes the lye by under 0.02 oz (0.5 g), so the lye still rounds to 6.7 oz (191 g) and the water stays 13.5 oz (382 g). Check it in a calculator all the same.
No castor oil. Add its 8 oz (227 g) to the olive oil, for 16 oz (454 g) of olive oil in all. The lye becomes 6.8 oz (192 g) and the water 13.5 oz (384 g), and the lather will be a little less bubbly.
No honey or honeycomb. Leave both out and change nothing else: they are not part of the lye calculation. The result is the plain bar from How to Make Shea Butter Soap, and it runs cooler and stays paler.

Customisation Ideas

Small changes that leave the lye alone. None of these ideas touches the oils, so none of them changes the lye:

Adjust the amount of honey slightly for a lighter or more pronounced sweet scent. Many soap makers use about 1 tsp of honey per pound (454 g) of oils, which is 3 tsp (15 ml) for this batch; less honey gives a cooler-running, paler bar.
Add texture with a tablespoon of ground oats alongside the honeycomb for extra texture.
Adjust the mould to individual bar moulds instead of a loaf mould for a different shape. Small moulds also shed heat faster, which suits a honey soap.
Always recalculate lye and water amounts with a soap calculator (see links below) before changing any oil or its weight.
Add natural colour with a pinch of turmeric or cinnamon for a warm, golden tone.

Popular soap calculators (external links, always re-run before adjusting oils): SoapCalc.net, HSCG Lye Calculator, LyeCalc.com.

Essential Oils

Optional: it works unscented. This recipe is written without essential oil, and the honey gives the bar its warm, sweet character on its own. If you want a scent, Baraka's recommended limit for soap is no more than 1 tbsp (15 ml) of essential oil in total per 16 oz (454 g) of oils, so this batch, with 48 oz (1,362 g) of oils, takes no more than 3 tbsp (45 ml) of essential oil in total, counting every oil together.

Add the essential oil at trace, together with the honey, and stir it in by hand. Warm, soft scents suit honey well, such as sweet orange or lavender. These limits are Baraka's recommendations rather than a guarantee of safety.

Application Tips

Lather, rinse and keep it dry. Use like any bar soap for hands, face, or body — lather with warm water and rinse well. A soap dish with drainage will help the bar last longer between uses.

Because this soap is rich in conditioning oils, a light lather goes a long way; no need to scrub aggressively. Store the bar dry between uses for the longest life.

What We Know and How We Know It

Practice, research and our own records. The method, temperatures, cure time and troubleshooting on this page come from established cold-process soap-making practice, and the lye figures are calculated from standard saponification values with a 5% superfat. The description of honey as a humectant comes from published research: a 2013 review in the Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology and a 2024 study of cosmetics with a high honey content. What we say about Baraka's shea butter, how it is made and where, comes from Baraka's own product documentation, and the calming, comforting character of shea butter and honey is traditional use and reported experience rather than a tested effect.

FAQ

How do I make shea butter and honeycomb soap at home?
Melt shea butter, coconut oil, olive oil, and castor oil, combine with a dissolved lye-water solution, blend to trace, stir in honey and honeycomb, pour into a mould, and cure for 4–6 weeks. At home you need a digital scale, a stick blender, a heat-resistant jug, a mould, gloves and eye protection, and about 45 minutes of work. Baraka's recipe uses 16 oz (454 g) of unrefined shea butter in a 48 oz (1,362 g) batch of oils, and the full amounts and lye calculation are in the Ingredients section above.

What's a good DIY soap recipe with honey?
A shea butter-based cold-process soap with honey and honeycomb works well, adding a warm, sweet character to a traditional soap base. This one combines Baraka's unrefined shea butter with traditional coconut oil, olive oil and castor oil, which gives a hard, creamy bar with a generous lather. If you would rather start with a simpler honey bar without honeycomb, Honey and Shea Butter Soap in Try These Next is a good first step.

Can I use honey in soap?
Yes — honey is commonly used in cold-process soap, though it can accelerate trace and generate heat, so it should be added and mixed in quickly. Its natural sugars add warmth and help the lather, which is why a honey soap is best made at the cooler end of the temperature range and left unwrapped in the mould. This recipe adds 2.1 oz (60 g) of honey at trace, and the bars are built on Baraka's unrefined shea butter.

How long does homemade soap need to cure?
Cold-process soap like this typically needs 4–6 weeks to cure fully. Curing lets excess water evaporate and allows the bar to harden, so don't use it before this time is up. Stand the bars on their sides with space between them, somewhere cool and airy, and turn them now and then so every face dries; a well-cured bar of Baraka's shea butter and honeycomb soap is harder, lasts longer in the shower and has a milder feel than a freshly cut one.

The Impact of Your Purchase

When you make skincare with Baraka ingredients, you are buying from women's cooperatives that earn fair wages and keep traditional processing methods alive. Baraka's 2025 Social and Environmental Impact Report records income opportunities for more than 3,000 women in northern Ghana, over $100,000 invested in women's enterprise infrastructure, and equipment and fuel recovery that have cut the carbon impact of shea processing by up to 90%.

At the Konjeihi Women's Enterprise Centre in Ghana's Upper West Region, Baraka's shea butter is made by hand, and the waste left over from making it is dried into fuel blocks that fire the next batch. Baraka also offsets 100% of the carbon cost of shipping to customers. You get full transparency about what touches your skin and your family's skin, and about where it came from.

Meet one of the women behind these ingredients in this short film: Shea Butter Producer: Zenabo Imoro.

Shop the Baraka Ingredients in This Recipe

Shea Butter — Shop Shea Butter. The unrefined, hand-made butter this bar is built on, giving it its conditioning feel and creamy lather.

Traditional Coconut Oil — Shop Traditional Coconut Oil. Virgin-grade coconut oil that gives the bar its hardness and big, bubbly lather.

More for soap makers: browse all Butters and Oils, or start with the DIY Starter.

Try These Next

More shea butter soaps to make next. If you enjoyed this recipe, you might also like:

Honey and Shea Butter Soap — the simpler honey bar, without honeycomb, and a good way to get used to soaping with honey.
Shea Butter and Turmeric Soap — a golden bar that uses the same cold-process method with a spice in place of honey.
Shea Butter and Goats Milk Soap — another sugar-rich additive that runs warm, so the heat-control skills you use here carry straight over.
Creamy Cow Milk and Shea Butter Soap — a creamy milk bar for when you want a softer, richer lather.
Shea Butter and Aloe Vera Soap — a fresh, plant-based variation on the same shea butter base.
Shea Butter and Peppermint Oil Soap — a cooling, invigorating variation for a different everyday bar.
Shea Butter and Eucalyptus Oil Soap — a fresh, herbal variation for a spa-like everyday routine.
Lavender Shea Butter Soap — a calming, floral variation on the classic four-oil base.
Coffee and Shea Butter Soap — an energizing, textured soap for a different everyday character.
Oatmeal and Shea Butter Soap — a gently textured, soothing bar for a different comforting character.

About These Ingredients

Expanded from our DIY guide. This recipe is expanded from our comprehensive Definitive Guide to DIY with Shea Butter, which explores additional formulations, ingredient options, and variations. Visit the full guide for more approaches to shea-based DIY skincare.

Disclaimer

The information in this article is for general education. It reflects traditional use, reported experience and, where noted, published research. It has not been evaluated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or Health Canada. Baraka products are cosmetics and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease or medical condition.

Always patch test a new ingredient, keep products away from the eyes and out of reach of children, and speak to a qualified healthcare provider about any skin or health condition. If you add essential oils, use no more than the amount given, and leave them out for young children, during pregnancy and on sensitive skin. Individual results vary.

About the Author

Wayne Dunn is the founder of Baraka Impact and a former Professor of Practice in Sustainability at McGill University. He holds an M.Sc. in Management from Stanford and has spent over 15 years working directly with the Konjeihi Women's Enterprise Centre in Ghana's Upper West Region to source traditionally made shea butter and natural oils. He shares DIY skincare recipes and ingredient guides designed to be made at home with real ingredients — and sourced with full transparency about where they come from.

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