Honey
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kchaystack
Supporting Member
Short answer is yes. But some people think it better to take a bit of the water from the lye, mix it with the honey to thin it and then put that in your oils and blend. Then you add your lye.
I mix my honey with a little of my batch water to thin it out/dilute it, then I add it directly to my prepared and cooled lye solution. I've found that doing it this way (i.e., mixing the dilute honey into my cooled lye solution) prevents my soap from overheating when it's going through gel, and it also prevents those annoying, weeping honey spots that can sometimes show up in the finished soap.
IrishLass
IrishLass
SunRiseArts
Well-Known Member
I love using honey. Personally I do not put it in my water or milk, if I understood kchaystack, that is what I do. I put in with my oils no more than 1 tablespoon per pound. But then you can not soap too hot, as it can scorch. Since you are using milk, you already have that to worry about. It can also turn your milk brown if the sugar burns. JMHO.
If you are doing CP, you can also put it at the end after your batter is ready, and it will become part of the soap as it cures.
If you are doing CP, you can also put it at the end after your batter is ready, and it will become part of the soap as it cures.
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Please don't add honey to your lye. Why start out with the sugars totally caramelized? Add it at trace, diluted if too thick by some warm water (discount the water).
Maybe the articles I'm going off of are just completely terrible and that's the issue, I'm not sure. This person used milk in place of water at the beginning of the recipe, to add the lye to. They froze it and used a double pot method with ice in the bottom in order to keep it from becoming too hot and curdling the milk. They had a finished product that looked great, but you know... If it doesn't heat up enough to scorch the milk, will it really affect the honey like that?
Yes it will. You will end up with a darker soap than you need to have.
I made a batch of OMH soap recently where I warmed evaporated goat milk and honey until everything was combined. I then slowly added the cooled milk mixture to a 50% lye solution. In retrospect, I should have chilled the milk and honey in the cooler, but everything went off without a hitch. The batch is a little dark, but I think a colder milk and honey mixture would help.
https://thenerdyfarmwife.com/milk-and-honey-soap-recipe-cold-or-hot-process/ This is one of the recipes I was going off. They froze milk and used it in place of water. I was really interested in that, in order to have more milk in it.
But P.S. from what I read also, the more sugar the milk has the bigger the chance it will burn and go dark. So adding the honey at that stage wouldn't work.
P.S.S. I figured that out after saying "Well, whatever" and giving it a go anyway. Turned a really pretty shade of red. XD
But P.S. from what I read also, the more sugar the milk has the bigger the chance it will burn and go dark. So adding the honey at that stage wouldn't work.
P.S.S. I figured that out after saying "Well, whatever" and giving it a go anyway. Turned a really pretty shade of red. XD
I used honey few times in the past and never gelled my honey soaps because...
I had one fail when everything heated up so fast, it turned into orange separated gloop.
I only ever had success with honey, when I made individual soaps and let them saponify without gelling.
They smelled yummy, I haven't made any in a while, I might add it onto my TO DO list. :think:
I had one fail when everything heated up so fast, it turned into orange separated gloop.
I only ever had success with honey, when I made individual soaps and let them saponify without gelling.
They smelled yummy, I haven't made any in a while, I might add it onto my TO DO list. :think:
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