Honey, Epic fail or...

[Guest]

Im experimenting again. Ive made another honey soap and i added way too much honey. I did it intentionally because of another batch which i accidentally added too much to and liked how it turned out. Problem is, i over did it. The bars are soft and oozing if pressed on.

Im wondering if they will dry out and reabsorb eventually or if its a loss. Has anyone had this happen before? Im willing to wait and see if they will harden up, but if anyone else has tried and it doesnt work, id love to save on the space.

 

[judymoody]

How much did you use?

 

[Guest]

about a tbsp per cup of oils.

 

[sudbubblez]

your soap is doomed. I've done this.

Its about 2 weeks old now and still the consistency of frosting and very sticky. Honey is a humectant and will make it harder for the lye to contact the fats and turn into soap. I used about 3-4 fluid ounces of honey for 1lb of oils. I'm about ready to just put the mass in a jar and use it that way. Smells great though. This soap is also oozing. Honey went into my lye solution what was stronger than 1:1. It was so viscous I had to hot process the stuff for hours and add lots of water just to get it to saponify.

I don't think you used near as much as I did. Maybe it will harden... but in my own experiment with obscene amts of honey, I found the practical reason that its limited.

your only hope for these bars to actually become hard, is if the honey crystalizes. ... only old honey crystalizes.

 

[Guest]

thank you sudbubblez, thats what i was thinking and not wanting confirmed. back to the drawing board to try and figure out why it worked on a very small scale and not on this grand scale attempt at recreation. and of course it smells wonderful... grumble...

 

[sudbubblez]

I had the idea of putting this loaf away in a cardboard box. May sometime, months down the road the honey will have finally hardened and it will be a super neat bar of soap. People would want it! Mine is so soft right now it can't even be cut and is slowly squishing under its own weight.

They won't go bad. Honey never expires and is a natural preservative. As of yet, I don't know how to force it to crystalize into a solid. I think that could save our soap!

 

[Guest]

You know, i think i may just do that anyway, just to see... though this batch has oatmilk in it too so who knows if there is enough honey to counter that going off.

I have a relative that is a beekeeper and know a bit about honey crystalizing, not sure if it will help us or not but here it is... honey tends to crystalize faster at lower temperatures-60 or less, and generally wont' if filtered or heated. it is also somewhat contingent on the moisture content and as honey is generally 16% (if i remember correctly) moisture it usually needs to fall below that to crystalize... unless it is lower in glucose than other sugars, and glucose content is based on which flowers the honey is gathered from...

i think i used clover honey so i may have a chance at it crystalizing but it also gelled and carmelized so then again maybe not... ill hope just for hardening.

yours is crushing under its own weight, eeks! I left mine in the mold for about 5 days before taking it out. had a big mess in the bottom of the mold but it held its shape enough to cut it despite the oozing. those 5 days it was sitting directly in front of an air conditioner. i wonder if you put yours in front of a fan or ac and kept flipping it if it might help?? just a thought... id love to see us be able to save these somehow!

 

[sudbubblez]

Maybe rebatching with beeswax could help. I've tried firing the dry air from the dehumidifier at it, this just made it melt and squish faster. Since then its been in the curing cabinet with the air purifier pointed at it... no change., although it did un-melt. The stuff I have already doesn't lather at all, I think the beeswax could be appropriate for making it more solid. I think the ooze is glycerin as its clear and viscous itself... its still pooling around the bottom of the loaf.

I am going to have to try separating a portion and putting it in the freezer. Maybe in the case of honey, curing in the fridge or freezer would work better to dry it out and make the stuff solid. I've seen no change over these couple weeks in this batch I made. It is carmelized all to heck and black!

I have a thread on another forum detailing this batch with pictures. talksoap thread titled 'obscene amonts of honey'

 

[Guest]

obscene amounts of honey, LOL, love that! Ill check out your post.

If your putting it in the feezer to try and crystalize it, im not sure if id bother. from what i know-and i could be wrong-frozen honey will not crystalize. it may freeze, but when it thaws you'll be in the same mess unless you leave it in there long enough to freeze dry and that might mess with the honey smell.

hmmm, clear does sound like glycerine. how did that happen? mine is all carmelized to heck too and my oozing is almost black-im thinking its burnt caramel? then again maybe glycerine with burnt caramel?

yours is all carmelized to heck and black... sounds like you made your whole batch the way the center and swirl portion of mine is. the batch i made was quite large and a lot of the honey sank in the pot so when i poured it i was left with a mostly honey mess on the bottom. I scooped a bunch out of the mold, mixed it with this honey glop and poured it back in. that is the portion of mine that is black and was oozing the most. i wonder if that is why mine sounds like it is a little more solid at 5 days than yours is a couple weeks... i poured the remainder of that honey glop on the bottom in a couple pvc tubes-just to see what it would do- and it is just a nasty smelly not in the least soap like gooey and oily mess that is getting tossed in the compost today. sounds like i have two parts in my batch that if mixed together thoroughly would be about the same amount of honey in yours.

not sure what you mean by un-melt, but that sounds like a step in the right direction anyway.

id be curious to hear if beeswax worked. im anti-wax in my soaps or id try it too, but it does go right along with the bee theme

 

[Guest]

another thought... as we have caramelized this, we dont really have honey anymore... so im rethinking the freezing bit and will read up on what happens when you freeze caramel...

 

[Guest]

Hi Bubblesudz, is your drying out?

 

[dryalligator]

I just bought honey powder from PV Soap and it says it real honey blown??? into a powder. Has anyone used it? I want to put it in goat milk soap with oatmeal honey fragrence. Site says you can use it soap.

 

[sudbubblez]

Th portion of the soap that went into the fridge doesn't stick to my fingers or leave a residue anymore, but once it warms up, it does. Beeswax did nothing in the way of harden it, I tried it with a small portion and used more beeswax than anyone would ever use in CP soap.

 

[Guest]

oh ****.

 

[sudbubblez]

Someone with sweet food fetish would really love it though. I've turned one portion into a sugar scrub and keep it in a jar in the shower. I am soft as a baby's ass when I get out of the shower... but boy does it make a huge mess, like someone smeared old motor oil everywhere.

 

[Guest]

lmao! (can i say that here?) thats why i decided to keep mine too. fortunately it seems to be holding up well and continuing to dry. ill figure out exactly how much honey i used and let you know later. im so glad you decided to keep it! huge mess huh? now im tempted to try out a bit and see just how much i overdid it too, lol. hows it smell when wet?

 

[sudbubblez]

smells good!! although it feels really greasy rather than syrupy... but it doesn't test caustic or irritate my skin. I don't know whats going on with it but Its nice and makes my skin really soft, like if I rubbed myself down with oil then patted it dry. The shower water will bead off me after using it.

 

[Guest]

ha! good stuff. and i kinda like the sugar scrub idea too... why not a little more sugar and i love it when a soap makes the water bead on you! sounds like despite everything it turned out pretty well, and at least well enough to enjoy while tweaking the next batch. its greasy though huh? i think i may try it again on a much smaller scale , and add a little borax. that might just cut the greasiness a bit.