I highly suspected that something like that had to be the case, because in all my soapy endeavors, I have never once experienced any overheating when using table sugar- not even when I experimented with using 4 tablespoons ppo (10% sugar). And it doesn't cause any visible/noticeable reaction in my lye solution (no color changes) either.
Honey, on the other hand, has been a different story for me. It causes overheating in my soap when added either to my oils, or to my batter at trace......
But when I dilute my honey with a little bit of water and add it directly into my cooled lye solution before adding it to my oils, things actually proceed quite beautifully for me, i.e., no overheating or any other kinds of problems in my batter throughout saponification, even though I soap warm and insulate/encourage gel in my oven @ 110F (yes- I actually have to encourage gel with my honey soaps, believe it or not , lol). I use 1 tablespoon honey ppo, and a 33% lye solution, btw.
Anyway, I'm convinced that honey behaves so beautifully for me in my soap because all of the adverse honey/lye reactions that could ever take place have already been worked out beforehand when added to my cooled (room temp) lye solution.... kind of like a pre-emptive strike of sorts....it takes all the fire out of it. lol Although it causes my lye water to heat up and makes it turn red at first before turning a deep burnt-orange color, it then cools down and behaves itself quite nicely from there on out. And my finished soap remains a light to medium somewhat golden beige/tan.
PSA**- By the way, if any of y'all decide to incorporate your honey in this way^^^, whatever you do, don't dissolve the honey in your water before adding the lye. Instead, do it the opposite way of how you would normally add table sugar...... You need to make your lye solution first and let it cool completely to room temp before adding your honey (which has first been diluted in a little water)....... ***
Trust me, you
don't want to add your lye to honey water. That's how I did it the first time I ever tried it, and I've never done it that way again (lots of heat, hissing, bubbling and a bit of volcanoing). Thankfully, disaster was averted because I had enough foresight to have prepared for such a scenario by using a very tall mixing pitcher about 4 sizes bigger than I needed (although the volcanoing was considerable, it thankfully never reached the top of my container), 'though just in case it thought about doing so, I was doubly-prepared by having mixed it in my shower right by the drain hole.
In comparison, when I add my diluted honey to my already prepared and cooled lye water, there's never any hissing, never any bubbling, and never any volcanoing. The solution does get hot and turn colors, but that's the only drama it ever exhibits before cooling down. For what its worth, I learned this wonderful technique from a fellow soaper named Soapbuddy (haven't seen her here for a very long time).
By the way, fructose reacts with my lye water in much the same way as honey (gets warm, turns it red, etc...)
IrishLass
