Honey Soap

[IrishLass]

What's the purpose of using honey then if not for the benefits to the skin?

For the most part, people use honey in lye-based soap formulas for it's ability to enhance bubbly lather, which it does in a wonderfully fantastic way. Speaking only for myself and my own formulas, besides the increased bubblage, I find it also adds somewhat of a bit of a hydrating factor. I can definitely tell which of my soaps has honey in it, and which ones do not.


IrishLass

 

[dixiedragon]

What's the purpose of using honey then if not for the benefits to the skin? It won't make your soap any thicker once it's been melted and processed. It would give your soap a distinct color I guess but not much else.

I like the color and the very mild sweet scent from honey soap. I love the feel - don't know if that's the honey or the beeswax, b/c I always use those together. And then there's label appeal.

Also, if you are trying to soap with local ingredients, honey is a good substitution for sugar to boost bubbles.

 

[SuzieOz]

Yup, what dixiedragon said!

 

[topofmurrayhill]

Lye being present doesn't have any effect on the honey itself. It's the exothermic heat in the reaction with the water that would process the honey from its natural state into basically liquid fructose.

Lye does indeed react with honey, so honey soaps contain an additional superfat unless you compensate for that. Honey is mostly a syrup of reducing sugars that, unlike sucrose, react with lye. The lye will also denature those proteins (enzymes) you mentioned earlier, as will the hydrochloric acid in your stomach. Enzymes are not nutrients beyond being proteins. Honey is a poor source of that, though it does provide the flood of simple carbohydrates that we all so desperately need.

 

[reinbeau]

Lye being present doesn't have any effect on the honey itself. It's the exothermic heat in the reaction with the water that would process the honey from its natural state into basically liquid fructose.

What's the purpose of using honey then if not for the benefits to the skin? It won't make your soap any thicker once it's been melted and processed. It would give your soap a distinct color I guess but not much else.

The best way I could see for using honey would be to add it after the lye/water reaction and then add a preservative to ensure your soap doesn't go rancid. Though if you are against using preservatives you should just skip the honey all together. I'm not completely sure on hard soaps, but I assume those don't have enough water in them to aid bacteria and thus honey may be useful there.

I use my own raw honey and would never add it to the lye. Always at trace. But I'm a bit confused as to why you need a preservative - honey will not make your soap rancid. If anything its antifungal and antimicrobial properties will keep anything like that from happening.

 

[coffeetime]

In my experience, honey does not accelerate or add to rancidity in CP soap at all. My bars with or without honey last the same. And it does add to the bubble factor substantially. It also doesn't act as an antifungal or anything else, because it gets broken down into basically Sugar by the lye monster.

 

[TeresaT]

That is certainly your prerogative. However, on the off chance that you read some of the more...shall we say...alarmist...articles available on the internet, here is a fairly unbiased article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethylenediaminetetraacetic_acid

I am not trying to influence you one way or the other, but I would hate to see you fall prey to some of the less factual websites out there.

Susie, thanks for this article. Now I know what exactly that is, I may be more inclined to use it. The sodium citrate isn't dissolving well for me for some reason; probably because my "room temperature" right now averages 65 degrees. The citric acid works great, but there's that extra bit of lye to add to offset it. EDTA may actually work better as a chelator than either of those two and it seems that it would be easier to use. I'll have to find a small amount and try it out.

 

[topofmurrayhill]

The citric acid works great, but there's that extra bit of lye to add to offset it. EDTA may actually work better as a chelator than either of those two and it seems that it would be easier to use. I'll have to find a small amount and try it out.

I think you'll like using it. Let me know if you need a sample.

 

[KristaY]

Susie, thanks for this article. Now I know what exactly that is, I may be more inclined to use it. The sodium citrate isn't dissolving well for me for some reason; probably because my "room temperature" right now averages 65 degrees. The citric acid works great, but there's that extra bit of lye to add to offset it. EDTA may actually work better as a chelator than either of those two and it seems that it would be easier to use. I'll have to find a small amount and try it out.

I just started using EDTA about 10 days ago and so far so good. I like that it's a chelator, plus will help avoid DOS. I tried adding it to the lye water but it wouldn't dissolve completely. I decided to remove a bit of water from my lye water volume and dissolve the EDTA in it separately. Once dissolved then I add it to my lye water. Since my batches aren't old enough to use yet, I don't have an opinion on how it works but I'm hopeful! I bought 1 lb at Lotion Crafter for $11.95 and use only a few grams per batch, which comes out to about 15 cents per batch.

 

[dixiedragon]

I use my own raw honey and would never add it to the lye. Always at trace. But I'm a bit confused as to why you need a preservative - honey will not make your soap rancid. If anything its antifungal and antimicrobial properties will keep anything like that from happening.

Also, I'm wondering what kind of preservative you would add to CP soap? I think it is used in liquid soap b/c liquid soap has a lot of water?

 

[dixiedragon]

BTW, all this talk of honey made me think of "Chalice" by Robin McKinley. The main character is a beekeeper and uses honey as the basis for her magic.

 

[TeresaT]

I think you'll like using it. Let me know if you need a sample.

Thanks! That's sweet of you. I think the supplier in my area has it. I'll check with her. If not, I might message you for a trade of some sort.

I just started using EDTA about 10 days ago and so far so good. I like that it's a chelator, plus will help avoid DOS. I tried adding it to the lye water but it wouldn't dissolve completely. I decided to remove a bit of water from my lye water volume and dissolve the EDTA in it separately. Once dissolved then I add it to my lye water. Since my batches aren't old enough to use yet, I don't have an opinion on how it works but I'm hopeful! I bought 1 lb at Lotion Crafter for $11.95 and use only a few grams per batch, which comes out to about 15 cents per batch.

That's what I found appealing about it. I've only had one small incident of DOS so far, but you never know, right? My only concern is that I use master batched lye solution. Will it dissolve in that?

I was trying to figure out how to make a 60% SC solution that I could use with my batches. One of TOMHs other posts mentioned SC being a 60% solution, I think. C(ould be mistaken, though.) However, I'm thinking that would be 60 gm SC and 40 gm distilled water to make a 100 gm solution; but would the SC actually dissolve in so little water? It does not seem to want to dissolve at all in my house. If I heated the water to make it dissolve, will it just fall out of the solution again when the solution cools down again? I remember from HS that some things do that when they have higher melting points and then cool back down. "Precipitate" I vaguely remember it being called? OK. Now my brain hurts.

 

[topofmurrayhill]

Thanks! That's sweet of you. I think the supplier in my area has it. I'll check with her. If not, I might message you for a trade of some sort.

Sure, but don't hesitate to ask. A little baggie will get you far without making a big dent in my stash, so no trade required.

That's what I found appealing about it. I've only had one small incident of DOS so far, but you never know, right? My only concern is that I use master batched lye solution. Will it dissolve in that?

I was trying to figure out how to make a 60% SC solution that I could use with my batches. One of TOMHs other posts mentioned SC being a 60% solution, I think. C(ould be mistaken, though.) However, I'm thinking that would be 60 gm SC and 40 gm distilled water to make a 100 gm solution; but would the SC actually dissolve in so little water?

It's sodium lactate solution that comes as 60%. I think maybe the best you could do with sodium citrate is 40% based on its published solubility.

Tetrasodium EDTA is supposed to dissolve well in alkaline solutions including lye, but I haven't tried it. I'll give it a try when I get back from my trip tomorrow. Normally I dissolve it in plain water, which is almost immediate. If you are using a 50% master lye, you could dissolve it in the additional water for each batch. I think IL just makes a separate solution and uses that.

In general, your impression is right that making a saturated solution at an elevated temperature results in the solute precipitating out -- sooner or later -- when the solution cools down. Like weather precipitation, the solute sometimes comes raining down to the bottom of the container.

 

[KristaY]

Theresa, if you decide to use EDTA and premix it, here's IL's procedure she wrote out in my Questions Re: EDTA Use thread. See post #4:

http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=58975