Honey + lye water = explosion (pics)

[Elly]

First time experience added lye to honey water and boom it created a dark brown volcano that produced horrible fumes that almost choked me, pretty scary stuff. I haven't made honey soaps in such a long time forgot that it must be added at trace. I started again and added GM to oils & honey at trace, all was well until I used stick blender wow!!! soap turned from off white color to dark red/orange and traced immediately, a few minutes later you can see the pick is a dark orange/tan. Is my soap going to be ok? I just don't know if the color change into red did harm the soap. I read about GM/honey soaps turning dark tan but the red/orange process? I've never heard of. I mixed oils/lye water at room temp but soap still heated up pretty quickly after honey addition.

:?: :shock:

 

[Bubbles Galore]

It might lighten up a bit. I add honey to lye water but I wait until the lye water has cooled a bit. No volcano that way. :wink:

 

[carebear]

orange/red is common with honey & milk soaps. some of the red will fade away.

 

[Elly]

Your reassuring words makes me feel better I thought I had put the batch in the rubbish, the color has already started to fade away but still a dark soap. it was the scary volcano with the fumes that really got me, wasn't prepared for that kind of chemical reaction. Thank you for your replies

 

[Sunny]

I hate honey! It never works for me and is stinky!

It is a relationship I am working on...
but yes I am very familiar with the red lye water or red bar of soap, haaa... should be fine

 

[glenolam]

I heat up the honey just until it's a more liquid-y consistancy then add it to the batch at trace. The only real issue I have ever had, and it isn't constant, is that the honey sometime pools up in the soap instead of blending in with everything.

 

[SudsyKat]

I added my honey to the lye water, as others have suggested. It did turn the lye water quite a nice shade of red, but it turned to a tan color in the soap. And actually, the smell that I got was a very pleasant honey smell after I added the honey to the lye water. Strange how different our experiences can be depending on so many variables! :shock:

 

[Elly]

I can see not everyone got the same eruption when adding lye to honey water, I was overtaken with the fumes, it was probably the small amount of water as I only used 50% of the liquid as water to dissolve lye and the other 50% was the GM awaiting to be mixed with oils. Adding the honey at trace was ok it blended in very well but then suddenly it went dark red/orange and at the same time it thicken so quickly. The color was very nice but it didn't stay. Today the soap is caramel color but i doesn't smell of honey it has a funky smell not very nice, hope it gets better as it cures. I think I'll stay away from the GM/honey soap don't like the results very much, I have made honey soaps before without dramas always adding it at trace :roll:

 

[KD]

honey in soap

I always warm up my honey and add it at trace to my GM soap. I've never had an incident. Sometimes my soap is a darker tan, but if I keep my temps low, it is usually ivory.

 

[soapbuddy]

It looks fine and I'm sure the soap will be fine. I subtract a little water from my calc and mix it with the honey, to dilute it a bit. I add the diluted honey as soon as the oils and lye is mixed, but before trace.

 

[IrishLass]

I believe your soap will be perfectly fine. Just give it some time. The smell will go away during cure.

Your honey experience is the same as what happened to me the very first time I ever tried adding honey to my lye water. Actually, what happened is that I dissolved my honey in my water before adding the lye to it, and as soon as I added the lye- WHOOSH! I had instant, hissing volcano.

Thankfully, I had an inkling that that might happen and so I had prepared myself beforehand by mixing it in an overly tall pitcher. Although it volcanoed, it didn't overflow the container.

The lye water turned a dark burnt orange color and smelled strongly of burnt sugar. I thought all would be ruined, but the soap actually came out wonderful in the end.

That was the first honey batch I ever made up to that time that the honey didn't weep from my finished soap. I was so happy with that pleasant side effect that I decided from that point on that I would always do honey soaps by mixing the honey with the lye water .

Although I still mix the honey in with my lye water, I do it differently than that first time. I set a little part of my water amount aside to dissolve the honey in, then I mix that in my cooled lye water. No volcano. And still no weeping honey in my finished bars. Yay!

Irishlass

 

[Elly]

Thanks for sharing your experiences with me. Here is the next day's unmolded soaps, weeping is present I thought this was lye as it zapped but after reading your post Irishlass I feel relieved it is honey & water weeping. I will try the three different ways you guys have explained here and see which works out better for me. Is the weeping an issue will it go away as the soap cures? I hope so otherwise I will probably just wipe it off with tissues. I like the color it turned out but I can't wait for the funky smell to go away. Irishlass my experience was exactly like yours except that I didn't dare to use the burnt smelly water to make soap, I threw it away and started up again adding honey at trace but still surprised by the rapid change in color, what a journey!!. Soapbuddy do you experience weeping with your method? I know Irishlasses' method does not produce weeping but somehow I feel I want to avoid adding honey to lye water I am still in shock. KD I also mix at very low temp as I like my soaps rather light in color.

 

[glenolam]

You could just wipe off the weeping as best as you can.

 

[soapbuddy]

Soapbuddy do you experience weeping with your method? I know Irishlasses' method does not produce weeping but somehow I feel I want to avoid adding honey to lye water I am still in shock. KD I also mix at very low temp as I like my soaps rather light in color.

I have had no weeping with my method. Since honey is a type of sugar, I don't insulate either so it doesn't overheat. It's possible that the weeping was caused by your soap overheating.

 

[Bubbles Galore]

I can see not everyone got the same eruption when adding lye to honey water, I was overtaken with the fumes, it was probably the small amount of water as I only used 50% of the liquid as water to dissolve lye and the other 50% was the GM awaiting to be mixed with oils. Adding the honey at trace was ok it blended in very well but then suddenly it went dark red/orange and at the same time it thicken so quickly. The color was very nice but it didn't stay. Today the soap is caramel color but i doesn't smell of honey it has a funky smell not very nice, hope it gets better as it cures. I think I'll stay away from the GM/honey soap don't like the results very much, I have made honey soaps before without dramas always adding it at trace :roll:

I think the difference is that you added the lye to the honey water, whereas I add the honey to the lye water or lye milk, so my lye and water (or milk) are already blended and cooling.

I think your batch will start to smell better soon. Don't despair. :wink:

 

[judymoody]

I use IrishLass's method also and it works great. Yes, the lye solution turns bright orange but then it fades to tan after you mix it with the oils. I just made a buttermilk/oat/honey batch that has a beautiful honey smell. 1 T PPO of honey.

 

[Elly]

bubbles galore, soapbuddy & judymoody thank you for taking the time to reply. I know now that I must add honey to lye water/milk if I decide to do it that way or add the honey at trace diluted in water. The soap is doing well today, it's all dried up no signs of weeping, smell improving a bit but yet no sign of that beautiful honey smell everyone talks about. One question if I decide to scent GM/honey soap any suggestions as to what scent will work best? I was thinking vanilla maybe what do you guys think?

funny looking soaps dark on one side and very light on the other, it looks like the bottom part of the tray went into gelling but not the top. I did not insulate at all

 

[soapbuddy]

Looks good! Differences in color on top and bottom might be from a partial gel.

 

[Kelley]

Interesting thread. I don't use honey in high quantities but I dissolve it in the water before adding my lye. Lat nights effort was a chamomile, Jasmine and licourice root water infusion with honey added. You can imagine the colour of the water. I made a loaf of half yellow half white with a cocoa pencil line. I had to use a lot of titanium dioxide. My essential oil blend was a red orange colour too. I also made a plain soap that's uncoloured from the same batch. Today, it's a nice beige colour, after overnight CPOP

 

[toxikon]

How much honey did you use anyway?

I made OMH soap recently, used split lye method and added honey to cooled lye water. No reaction and my soap turned out a light creamy colour. I think I used 1 tsp PPO.

Edit: Guess I shouldn't post when I'm half asleep, I didn't see how old this thread was! And I can't figure out how to delete my comment...