Best way to add Honey?

[Elhaym03]

Hi. I am new to soap making and want to try adding Honey to my soap. (I will be using lye and my oils are Olive, Coconut, and Palm.) I have seen two different ways to add Honey- Dilute it with water and add it to trace or Straight Honey and add it to Oil as it heats. What way works the best or what happens when you do either?

The recipe I have for the base soap (from a class I took) is:
150g Coconut oil
150g Palm oil
300g Olive Oil
144g Rm Temp Goat Milk
84g Distilled Water
84g Sodium Hydroxide
.3-1 ounce EO

Additive (possibilities):
2 tsp exfoliant to trace (I plan to use Ground Oats)
For Color:
2 tsp pigment to trace
or
2 tsp clay to oil


Thank you!

 

[Ekuzo]

I put honey in the water before the NaOH, it dissolves well and once the lye solution is prepared, it turns a beautiful red color - too bad the color doesn't stay in the soap though.

Is that CP or HP? If CP, the combined liquid is too much - I don't think you'll benefit from having lye concentration lower than 33% in the finished product, it will take too long for the extra liquid to evaporate.

Also, always make sure to run the numbers through lye calculator and never follow recipes blindly. That will save you the trouble of a ruined batch and/or unsafe soap

 

[AliOop]

I agree with the recommendation to reduce your total amount liquid unless you plan to hot process this soap.

Assuming you intend to cold process the soap, be aware that using both honey and goat milk - especially room temp goat milk - means that this batter will heat up significantly. It will definitely gel with all that water and all the heat from the honey and the sugars in milk. I'd recommend at the very least using very cold goat milk, not room temp.