This quick-to-assemble Egyptian Magic liquid soap mixes all the best parts of Egyptian Magic with a gentle liquid soap base to make for a bee-riffic honey kissed hand soap. Egyptian Magic is made from just six ingredients—olive oil, beeswax, pollen, honey, propolis, and royal jelly. In my DIY version I make the royal jelly optional for accessibility’s sake, dropping that number to five.
And here, for the soap, I’ve dropped the beeswax, as my previous beeswax + soap experiments have taught me that the soap will wash away everything but the beeswax, leaving you with a sticky film on your skin that doesn’t exactly mesh with the “squeaky clean” sensation you expect when you’re done washing your hands.
Once you have your homemade liquid soap paste on hand, all that’s left is to soften it with some water to take it from a thick, vaseline-like texture to something more like the liquid soap you’re familiar with.
You can add whatever you like to your softened liquid soap, and this time we’re adding all kind of bee-inspired goodies. Some olive oil (pomace) (USA / Canada), for a moisturizing punch; blitzed bee pollen for a hefty dose of vitamins and minerals; propolis for a healing kick; and raw honey for a good dose of enzymes and some added moisturizing power.
The final Egyptian Magic liquid soap is a golden, sudsy treat, perfect for washing hands and faces. If you like Egyptian Magic, I definitely recommend giving this a try.
2019 update: I’m afraid I can’t offer much in the way of detailed troubleshooting information for this project as I haven’t made liquid soap using KOH in well over 3 years and my memory of the process is limited to my notes, which you’re reading here. Sorry!
Egyptian Magic Liquid Soap
80g | 2.82oz liquid soap paste
Water, to soften1 tsp honey
1 tsp olive oil (pomace) (USA / Canada)
½ tsp pollen
30 drops propolis tincture
1 tsp white kaolin clay (USA / Canada)Start by softening your liquid soap paste about halfway. I found that adding the bee goodies really loosened up my softened paste from a great texture to way too thin, so we’re going to add the bee goodies halfway through the softening process, and then add more water as needed.
So—weigh your soap paste out into a seal-able container, and add about 30g of just-boiled water. Mash the mixture together a bit, and then seal the container and leave it overnight for the paste to absorb the water and soften up a bit.
Now, add your honey, onlive oil, pollen, propolis, and clay. You should notice the mixture loosen from these small additions.
To finish it up, slowly add more water until you get the texture you like in liquid soap. I’m a big fan of adding ~15g or so of just-boiled water at a time, mashing, sealing, and leaving it overnight. It takes a few days, but it’s almost all downtime.
Once you’ve got a texture you’re happy with, press the soap through a sieve to remove any blobs of pollen, and transfer your soap to a pump top bottle. Enjoy!
You make the most lovely products. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks, Darlene!
If you don’t have liquid soap paste could you use a liquid castile soap with this recipe?
I wouldn’t recommend it—the liquid soap will have already been fully diluted and I think you’ll find you end up with a really watery final product. You could try just adding the pollen and honey as I found the propolis seemed to be the main culprit for loosening up the mixture, but I can’t make any guarantees 🙂
Do you have a suggestion for the liquid soap paste recipe? I know you’ve got one for cream soap. Love your wanderings through the body care world!
Here you go 🙂
Awesome, thank you so much – I did look, search, and this didn’t come up. Can’t wait to try this, as a beekeeper the use of all the products of the hive intrigues me!
🙂 Have fun!
OMG!!! So incredible recipe for soap! I will definitely try this at home! Thanks a lot for sharing ! Regards!
Thanks, Lisa! Enjoy it 🙂
I have royal jelly and would like to add it. How much and how would I add some to this recipe?
I’d start with a teaspoon and add it with the honey 🙂
I keep telling myself I will get brave and make soap. But I admit– if I do anything– it’s the soap paste. It intrigues me like nothing else in this world. So– this is on my list. LOL I just need more time. I need a clone so I can do all the things I want, like making my lip balms, body butters, foot creams and soaps!
I know the feeling! Right now I would also like a clone who’d be able to give me a perfect shoulder massage 😉
Wow, i’m gonna to try it. Did the olive oil separate from your soap because there was no emulsifier to hold it in?
Soap is an emulsifier, but it does have its limits. Mine didn’t separate, though.
Where did yo ubuy the royal jelly, propolis, and bee pollen from?
Always locally 🙂 Those are from the St. Lawrence Market in Toronto.
Hi there! Question for ya…. the measure of soap base you have listed there…is that including the water to soften or before water to soften? I also have a another question about the soap bases. I made both the cream and liquid. My liquid base came out much thinner than the cream base. Neither are close to runny by any means. The cream is just much thicker, a few times more. Is this how yours is also?
Great job with these recipes btw. I love to stubbornly do it myself with you.
Hint hint…would so appreciate some winter (all seasons really) recipes for eczema help. For the face….gentle soaps or facial cleansers and some face lotions or oils. 🙂 eczema is a bummer! Nothing worse than a red, itchy spot on my face. Any help would be great.
Keep up the great work lady
Hey Hollie! Whenever a I refer to the paste, that is unsoftened. Once it’s softened, it’s not paste anymore! And yes, the cream soap paste should be much thicker than the liquid soap paste. This is because NaOH makes a solid soap and KOH makes a soft soap, so when you use both you’ll get something somewhere in the middle.
Check out this serum for eczema, it’s amazing for problem skin! And just do a site search for eczema in general—I already have quite a few eczema recipes published 🙂
Hi Marie, I have been making liquid soap for about five years but other than vit. E, I have never added much to the final product when I dilute the paste. If you start adding organic materials ( bee pollen, propolis) do I need to worry about preservatives or just rely on the elevated pH to keep the bugs away?
Thanks!
Hey Jennifer! You should be ok without a preservative; another reader left this super helpful comment detailing how pH isn’t the only preserving force in soap 🙂
Hi Marie!
I’ve found a local supplier of everything bee related! And because of your praise of all things Egyptian Magic, I want to make some Egyptian Magic (bar) Soap. What are your thoughts of adding fresh royal jelly to bar soap? Do you have any experience with it?
Hey Penny! I still haven’t played with royal jelly, but I would worry that saponification would really kick its butt… perhaps to the point of including it being a waste. I really don’t know how one would ever figure out if that was the case, though… testing for some sort of actives before and after? Obviously that’s not really an “at-home” sort of investigation. In a liquid soap you could add it with all the liquid and that would leave it unscathed, methinks. Also, I have been planning on making an Egyptian Magic bar soap as well—I look forward to hearing how yours goes!
Hi Marie, since making your soap paste I’ve been looking forward to other recipes I can use it in – great recipe BTW, had tried another that took over 20 hours! So yours was a joy to do.
Trying this Egyptian soap looked simple enough – my only concern is that mine is not yellow like yours, but a sort of reddy brown colour. The texture is fine, and it is good and soapy. Also, after a couple of days in the pump bottle the liquid is separating a bit. It’s fine after a shake up though.
Hey Wendy! I’ve found that the various Egyptian Magic recipes can vary in colour quite a lot because of the wide variety of bee products; if your pollen, honey, or propolis was slightly darker than mine, that’ll cause a colour difference. I’ve found some propolis can be really dark and make things a reddy brown, so perhaps that is it 🙂
I think the separating thing is from an excessive superfat, so at some point I should go in and experiment with a lower one for that recipe. Did you check the 90% KOH box?
Hi Marie, my soap seperated after a couple days too, but I didn’t even notice there was a 90%KOH box until after I made the base. So in this case would I maybe lower the amount of olive oil I add to this particular formula?
Yes, that sounds like a good alternative 🙂
Hi, Having made this soap for almost a year with great results i thought i would make some for my pets, so i used neem oil. After some time it seems to separate and the neem oil sits on top of the finished soap mix. Any ideas why?
That’s… super weird. If you’ve never experienced separation with the soap before, and only with neem oil (assuming you’re using the same amounts?) then I’m afraid I haven’t the foggiest! I’d assume it’s something to do with neem itself since it’s the only thing that changed, but I haven’t worked with it much so I really couldn’t say. Odd!
Why don’t you need a preservative for this if it has water in it?
I’ve covered this in the FAQ 🙂
Hello again Marie !! I’ve just made this liquid soap with some paste I already had in my cupboard. Just added all the ingredients and my only question is, how many days should I leave the mix before I can bottle and use it (you say in your post that it takes a few days)? what is it that I’m looking for? can’t I use this right away? Thank you !!
update: I’ve been using the Egyptian Magic Soap since yesterday and it feels GREAT on my hands. The only thing is that my clay sank to the bottom of the bottle, so I have to shake before using.
one more question though. I’d forgotten that my paste needed to be neutralized (I used a recipe from Failor’s book “Liquid Soaps”) with citric acid/borax. So far I don’t feel that the soap is harsh on my hands or anything, but I wanted to see if your liquid soap recipe doesn’t require to be neutralized as well.
There’s no excess lye in this soap, so it doesn’t need to be neutralized 🙂
You’re just looking for the soap paste to dissolve into the water; one it does, you’re golden!
Hello!
I’m sorry this is such a late post but I just found your website (it’s very well organized and you are extremely helpful!) Anyway, I tried to follow a link to the liquid soap paste and it won’t let me access it. And then I searched for it on your blog and I can’t find it there either. Do you still have the recipe for this, and is there a way to get it?
Thanks!
Michaela
Weird! I’ve fixed it, it should work now—thank you for the head’s up! It was always there, the link was just wrong and whatever search terms you were using didn’t unearth it. Odd indeed.
Thank you so much for your response! I’m glad you were able to fix it, I can hardly wait to try out some more recipes!
Happy soaping!