My Experimental Honey & Beeswax Soap

[TVivian]

That soap looks delectable! It's gorgeous, and I love that fragrance!

 

[spenny92]

A very good looking soap. Well done.

But I think that 6% SF might be a little too much as you have also added honey and it might take the SF to a bigger % (maybe 10%). I'm telling you that because you also use lower SF when you make 100%CO soap while using coconut milk instead of water, and you take the SF from 20% to 12%.

As it concerns about the weird behavior of the image (which I also had the same problem in my first page load), it might be for the reason that you haven't got a domain name for your site where your image is, but only an IP with a port number.

Nikos

That might work for you, but not for everyone.

I don't adjust my SF when I use milk, cream, honey, etc. When I use goat's milk, I keep my SF at 7% because that's how I like it. Same when I use coconut cream in salt bars/100% CO soaps - I keep the SF at 20% and I love it.

 

[Sonya-m]

That looks amazing!! I've just ordered some beeswax - I know exactly how I will be using it now!!

I'm confused about the post regarding an increase in SF by using honey - how does honey increase the SF, does it contain oil??

 

[ngian]

I'm confused about the post regarding an increase in SF by using honey - how does honey increase the SF, does it contain oil??

It contains reducing sugars (fructose and glucose) as DeeAnna has stated, that react with lye maybe before lye reacts with the oils.

Read from here and beyond: http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?p=514934#post514934

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

Fructose is only about 40% of the total honey weight, so it would have upped the sf a little (about 2%)

 

[Sonya-m]

Thanks both - I didn't know that about certain sugars. Love that soap making is an ongoing education

 

[ngian]

Fructose is only about 40% of the total honey weight, so it would have upped the sf a little (about 2%)

Hello TEG and thank you for your numbers, but how did you do the math?

If IL used around 25grams of honey ( 5% ppo) you are saying that around 10gr is fructose and that will eat 2% of the total unknown weight of lye that was used. Is there any report that says how much lye is eaten by a gram of fructose?

I don't want to be a nerd, I just like to read some evidence (just like Kevin Dunn has done for goat milk) before getting some exact numbers...

Hopefully I will not be misunderstood.

Nikos

 

[ngian]

That might work for you, but not for everyone.

I don't adjust my SF when I use milk, cream, honey, etc. When I use goat's milk, I keep my SF at 7% because that's how I like it. Same when I use coconut cream in salt bars/100% CO soaps - I keep the SF at 20% and I love it.

Hello spenny

I just asked IL how come and she didn't alter her SF this time that she used reducing sugars, as she had lower it before in her other recipes that also included reducing sugars...

I didn't insist that something is better the way I pointed it.

Friendly Nikoshttp://www.soapmakingforum.com//www.pinterest.com/pin/create/extension/

 

[CTAnton]

what an informative thread this has been for me!
As a relative newbie to the soaping world what I'm picking up from Irish Lass' wonderful step by step process is the lack of a stick blender.I for one always grab that so automatically in making soap...makes me wonder how many soaps on a stick might have been averted had the stick blender never been used...
Another thing of note for me was adding the FO to the oils before the lye...just throwing these variables out to you all as steps that might be taken to minimize problems in our collective soap making...

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

Hello TEG and thank you for your numbers, but how did you do the math?

If IL used around 25grams of honey ( 5% ppo) you are saying that around 10gr is fructose and that will eat 2% of the total unknown weight of lye that was used. Is there any report that says how much lye is eaten by a gram of fructose?

I don't want to be a nerd, I just like to read some evidence (just like Kevin Dunn has done for goat milk) before getting some exact numbers...

Hopefully I will not be misunderstood.

Nikos

It's based on the fact that about 82% of honey is sugar, of which half is fructose and will react with the lye. So 40% of the 5% (honey was used at 5% in this recipe) is 2% - essentially 2% extra lye reactant used

 

[Saponomancer]

Those are beautiful soaps! and this is a very informative thread
I've been having some problems with not being able to see the photos on random posts too, including this one, I just grab the link out of the source code and open it in a new window

 

[ngian]

It's based on the fact that about 82% of honey is sugar, of which half is fructose and will react with the lye. So 40% of the 5% (honey was used at 5% in this recipe) is 2% - essentially 2% extra lye reactant used

It is a logical way of thinking but with my non chemical knowledge way of thinking, it seems to me better to convert those amounts in measurement unit of weight in the scenario of the fact that 1% of fructose reacts with 1% of Lye because 1% of Lye is different between two different oil recipes in grams.

And on the other hand we must learn if 1 gram of fructose fully reacts with 1 gram of NaOH. Tried to search Google this one but with no luck so far...

 

[Jstar]

Oh my gosh those are ADORABLE! I LOVE the honey drips..stroke of genius! Bet they smell wonderful

As for the pics/page thingy..do a CTRL+F5..it'll clear your browser cache {hard refresh}

ETA: You can also download CCleaner for free and clear all that txt data that builds up over time. {stay away from the registry tool in that program however if you are not familiar with registry issues...all you need is to run the cleaner }

 

[jules92207]

IrishLass this is a gorgeous soap. I LOVE it. Just amazing.

I'm going to have to check out that M&P. I haven't worked with M&P yet but you just inspired me!

 

[IrishLass]

Thank you one and all! I made another batch last night, and it all went as well as the previous batch (i.e., no drama). I haven't unmolded it yet. I'll be doing that later on this evening (I can hardly wait!).

Nikos- Regarding my amount of honey and my super-fat- goodness me, I had completely forgotten about that thread discussing the different kinds of sugars and how they react with lye. Thanks for re-connecting me to that discussion (I need to add that to my notebook!). For what it's worth, though, I didn't bother adjusting my super-fat from 6%, because that's what I always use with this particular formula- even when I add honey to it- and it has always turned out very nice for me. I figured that if it isn't broke, don't fix it.

When I lower my super-fat with my soaps made with 100% milk as my liquid, I basically do so because my resulting soaps have always turned out with diminished lather (which I don't like whatsoever- I love my bubbles too much, lol.)

In comparison, the addition of honey has never given me the problem of diminished lather in my 6% super-fatted Bastile. In fact, it's just the opposite- my lather is even more bubbly (yay!)....unless I also happen to add 100% milk to it as well, however (boo!). In that case, I do get diminished lather, and so I always lower the superfat of my Bastile to 3% when also using 100% milk, which does the trick nicely for me to get my lather level back up to my liking (yay!).

The super-fat in my salt bars are a whole different story altogether, though, because of the different variables at play. I used to make my salt bars with 100% CO, water, and 100% salt ppo with a 10% to 15% super-fat. Although very nice, I felt they could be improved upon- especially the lather (I'm mostly all about the lather in case anyone didn't know....as long as it plays nice with my skin-type ).

Anyway, I felt the lather needed more depth. It was too 1-dimensional to me. Enter coconut milk. Well, I theorized that if I added 100% coconut milk to add depth to my lather, then I would have to adjust the super-fat down so that my bubbly quotient wouldn't be reduced (like I said, I'm fanatical about my bubbly lather, lol). But how much should I lower it? That became the question of the day for me (bear in mind that when I was doing all this adjusting, it was before Dr. Dunn and DeeAnna had shown up on my radar).

Moving right along, I had to keep in mind that the supporting star of my salt bar formula was 100% coconut oil, which though nice and bubbly, can strip the hide off a rhinoceros if one isn't careful to keep from going too low on the super-fat........

Enter in my salt amount. One cool thing about salt bars (for me) is that the large amount of salt makes my 100% amount of CO seem so much more mild/less drying. And the salt also makes the bar super hard and long-lasting....... But it also can inhibit lather....

For a good solid month or so I think I almost drove myself crazy theorizing and trying to juggle all the different variables around just to do something as seemingly simple as add a little depth to my lather (ha!), but to make a long story short(er), after all of my tweaking and balancing, I ended up with a salt bar formula that actually works beautifully for me: 100% CO, 100% coconut milk as my liquid, 25% salt ppo, and a 13% superfat. It's both bubbly and creamy enough to my liking, the salt amount and the super-fat level are able to balance out the coconut's cleansing power and make it mild enough for my skin-type, and it's hard and long-lasting enough for me.

Sorry for the length of this post. I guess the moral of this story is to beware of asking how I came about doing certain things in my soap. You may end up having to wade through cavernous tome! I just don't know how to give short answers sometimes!


IrishLass

 

[fuzz-juzz]

They are super cute!

 

[greenbarnsoaps]

This is beautiful and so creative!

 

[ngian]

When I lower my super-fat with my soaps made with 100% milk as my liquid, I basically do so because my resulting soaps have always turned out with diminished lather (which I don't like whatsoever- I love my bubbles too much, lol.)

In comparison, the addition of honey has never given me the problem of diminished lather in my 6% super-fatted Bastile. In fact, it's just the opposite- my lather is even more bubbly (yay!)....unless I also happen to add 100% milk to it as well, however (boo!). In that case, I do get diminished lather, and so I always lower the superfat of my Bastile to 3% when also using 100% milk, which does the trick nicely for me to get my lather level back up to my liking (yay!).

Thank you for your long answer IrishLass. It helps me to explain in a logical way why and how these additives affect lathering.

From your feedback on honey vs milk additives it seems that honey adds more to lather than milk although it is used in lesser amount because of their chemical composition.

Honey, that is used in a small amount of 5% of oils in a recipe, has around 82% of various types of sugars (according to this link - fructose, glucose, sucrose, maltose... ect) that probably all of them affect the lathering properties of soap as DeeAnna has described it:

Sugar like many other additives appears to increase lather by disrupting the crystalline structure of soap. It basically works by making the soap softer and more soluble in water.

So according to the above we added 4% of sugar additives in a recipe but with unknown amount of lye discount.

On the other hand milk although it is used in bigger amount of 30% of oils (full water replacement) it has (according to Dunn's report) only 4% of sugars (lactose).
So a total of 1.2% of sugars is added in a recipe, while there are also fats that reacts with lye eating up to 6% of a recipe's lye, that leaves more free oils that cut down lather.

That is my logic in explaining the reason why you experience more lather with honey without any prior lye discount from soapcalc, while with milk you must lye discount from the start so as not to loose your bubbles as generally milk eats more lye than honey while it also gives lesser sugars.

Nikos

 

[lisajudy2009]

I love this!!! My question is do you have to adjust the lye when using honey? I was a little confused by the different posts. Sorry I'm new to the board and haven't tried honey yet! I made oat milk to make a honey oat bad. Thanks. IrishLass From what I have seen your posts and comments are always informative and helpful!

 

[reinbeau]

I have never adjusted the lye - but I usually use a 5% lye discount when I'm soaping with goat's milk and honey, so I think it's fine. If you normally superfat at a higher level you might rethink things.