Adding honey

[Jamie Bell]

How much honey can I add to my goats milk soap this is the recipe
10.3 oz Water
50.0 oz Olive Oil
6.0 oz Evaporated Goat Milk
6.41 oz Lye

 

[saponem]

I would use 3 table spooons as for each 500gram of oils I use 1 table spoon. Otherwise i found drops of honey coming out of bar, sometimes

 

[Jamie Bell]

Is 7 tablespoons enough honey to give it a nice honey smell? Which is a little under 3 tabelspoons for 500 grams

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

I don't think you'll get much scent from the honey, especially at any amount which won't cause issues with the soap itself

 

[shunt2011]

You aren't likely to get much honey smell out of the soap. And you are asking for overheating if you add too much. I add 1 T, PPO in my soaps. Sometimes a bit more. But it needs to be watched as the combination of GM and Honey can get pretty hot.

 

[dixiedragon]

You won't get much honey scent. I do get a soft, sweet smell from my honey soap. I use 5% beeswax (the yellow kind) and 1 tablespoon of honey PPO (per pound oils). It's best to hot process if you are making soap with beeswax.

 

[ItsForrest]

I've just made a couple batches of goat milk and honey soaps. 1 tablespoon per pound of oils is about as much as you want to add. You will not get a detectable honey smell without adding a fragrance. All olive oil means a long cure. If you do choose to use a FO go to the heavy end of the acceptable amount as the scent will fade over the several months that it takes for olive oil to cure.

 

[Saranac]

Here's a thread where a member wrote about using 12% honey in a CP soap: https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/12-honey-cp-soap.63192/

And here's another thread where the 10% honey soap was briefly discussed: https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/dandelion-honey-recipe.63492/

I had forgotten about my attempt with (only) 10% honey until I saw Jamie Bell's post this morning. I dug out a bar (they were exactly 1 year old yesterday!) and it lathers nicely, but the honey smell is gone, even though I used a creamed clover honey that was too floral to eat (at least, for my taste). The bar isn't soft like a newly cut soap, but there is a very slight give if the bar is squeezed between two fingers. I've never seen it sweat, nor were there signs of sweating in storage.

EDITTED: I tried this method with evaporated goat's milk, but it was a failure. It's hard enough getting that much honey into lye water without it burning, let alone with milk. . . .

 

[IrishLass]

I use 5% honey ppo (roughly 1 tablespoon ppo), which will initially emit a sweet honey scent from my soap (smells just like those Bit 'O Honey candy chews), but it always completely and permanently disappears during cure. If I want to give my honey soap a lasting honey scent, I add 2% (.3 oz ppo) of Wild Mountain Honey FO from Peak's to my batter, which makes my soap smell realistically of honey for over a year and counting.

To prevent my honey soap from overheating and/or ending up with weeping honey spots in my finished bars, I dilute my honey with a little water to make it less viscous and add it directly to my pre-made, room temperature lye solution before soaping. Here's a thread I started which eventually (in post #16) describes how I make my soaps with honey (complete with a pic of how they turn out): https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/my-experimental-honey-beeswax-soap.55689/


IrishLass

 

[Jamie Bell]

Is 1 table spoon per pound of oils enough to even have real benifets to it I'm still new to soap and if its not going to do more good than harm I figure I should just leave it out

 

[IrishLass]

It depends what kind of benefits you are looking for. Speaking only for myself, I find that adding one tablespoon of honey is plenty enough to give a really nice boost to my lather, as well as providing a nice humectant after-feel to my skin.


IrishLass