Honey & Oat Question

[dippy]

I messed up my last honey and oat batch by cutting too late and the bars had a crumbly edge. Not the end of the world and they will still be usable but I wanted to have another go.

Anyway I used a slightly different oils recipe this time and it crumbled again on cutting! I think this time I possibly cut too early? The block was hot and felt fairly hard - I would have said cheddar hard. It was only about 4 hours after pouring. I am doing small batches of 400g oil so just under 1lb. Can a bar crumble if it's cut too early? It wasn't falling apart just at the bottom edge on cutting.

I am using slightly less than 2tbsp honey and 1tbsp oatmeal. Could it be too much oatmeal causing this? I have used the oil recipe before on plain bars without any issues of crumbling.

Also another question on fragrance. The last one I didn't fragrance and I like the honey smell, I don't know if that will disappear once cured. This time I put a random fragrance blend from eo calc and it really doesn't suit the bar! What essential oils suit oat and honey or do most people leave them unfragranced.

 

[Jersey Girl]

Thats a lot of honey for a 1lb batch. I would worry about overheating. I use one Tbsp oatmeal And one tbsp honey for my 2 lb batches. I’m sure someone with some experience on that will chime in. 4 hours after pouring seems very early to cut. Can you post your whole recipe so we can see exactly what you used? It really depends on a lot of factors and without the ingredients it’s hard to say.

as far as fragrance, Oatmeal, Milk and Honey is a very popular FO that lends itself nicely to those ingredients I also have a FO from BB called Raw Honey that smells soooo nice. Sometimes I’ll add a bit of that to the OMH fo to up the honey scent a bit. Unfortunately the natural honey smell will not survive Saponification

 

[dippy]

Ah thanks Jersey Girl. I was hoping to stick with EOs but maybe I should look at the FOs in the future. In terms of the crumbling it sounds like I might have used too much honey although I am sure I got the amount from someone on here saying they settled on 2tbsp for 1lb.

I have used the basic recipe no problem before so I think its either the honey or cutting it much too soon. I did 2 other soaps today with the same recipe minus the additives so if they don't cut ok I will post all the recipe details as I haven't got the exact percentages to hand at the moment.

 

[Jersey Girl]

Most of my soaps I cut between 18 and 24 hours but I use a good percentage of hard oils and usually sodium lactate too.

 

[IrishLass]

You'll definitely need to post your entire recipe so we can troubleshoot more pinpoint accuracy.

Another helpful thing we'll need to know is whether your soap went through full gel or not.

In the meantime, there are some things that I've experienced in regards to my soap crumbling upon cutting:

-Soap can crumble if it did not gel and you cut it too soon. As a result of having had this happen to me, I usually wait 24 to 36 hours to cut my soaps that do not go through full gel, sometimes longer.

-Soap can crumble upon cutting if you waited too long and the soap is too hard.

-Soap can crumble upon cutting if it is lye heavy.

-Soap can crumble upon cutting if one uses too much sodium lactate in their batch.

-Soap can crumble at the bottom edges while cutting if you are using a butcher-type steak knife to cut (where the blunt edge is thicker than the blade end) and your soap's hardness has gone past the sweet spot where it normally slices through cleanly all the way down.

-Soap can crumble upon cutting when certain additives such as oatmeal, clay, beesawx, stearic acid, or salt are used and you cut the soap at the wrong time, and/or if you've added too much of them.

Regarding the amounts of honey and oatmeal.....I myself use 1 tablespoon of each per pound of oils/fats in my soap and don't have a problem with crumbling when cutting.

Regarding the natural honey scent, which I find is absolutely glorious........it sadly goes away with time. For my honey/beeswax soaps, I've taken to adding a mere .3oz ppo of Peak's Wild Mountain Honey FO (now sold by Keystone Candle Supply). It's smells just like real honey, and the small .3oz ppo (about 1.89% ppo) that I add to it makes my soap smell like the real natural honey smell my unscented honey/beeswax soap has at the beginning before it fades........only the smell now lasts forever (it's a good, strong, long-lasting FO).

When I make my goat milk soaps with oatmeal and honey in them, I like to use my own OMH FO blend that I make using 2 parts Oregon Trails OMH FO to 5 parts Daystar's Milk Sugar Kisses FO. It makes the perfect OMH FO that really and truly smells like oatmeal, milk and honey when soaped, without a single hint of the almond/cherry notes that so many other OMH FOs I've tried always end up smelling like. It soaps beautifully with no acceleration or scent-morphing, and it only discolors to a light beige- the perfect color for an oatmeal soap. It lasts forever scent-wise, too.


IrishLass

 

[dippy]

Ok thanks IrishLass. I will try 1 tbsp honey next time. Also I think I cut far too quick and I do use a butcher type knife so that wont help. It crumbled just at the bottom edge and I have had this happen three times before out of 16 batches.

The other batches that crumbled were another oat and honey with a different oil recipe (but not much different), and with a 57% shea face bar like cmzahas. My batches seem to go from too early - too late to cut very quickly as I am doing small batches.

This batch was 33% OO, 25% SB, 12% RBO, 15% CO, 10% CB, 5% Castor, 3% SF, 33% Lye Concentration. I made 3 batches today with different additives and this honey one was the only one it happened with.