Sugar and Salt

[xyxoxy]

For a while now I've been adding 1 tsp. of salt PPO to my lye water to increase bar hardness and I feel pretty good about the effect it has.

I've just started experimenting with sugar for added bubbles and had a few questions. I've seen the great suggestions for making simple syrup so I'll keep that in mind.

1. Is there any issue with adding both salt and sugar into the same batch?
2. Can both be dissolved together in the water used to make my lye mixture or should the sugar be added later?
3. I've read that sugar and honey both have the same effect and honey may have some added benefits. I recently added 1/2 tsp honey to a 1# test batch and am waiting to see how it turns out.
4. Is 1/2 tsp sugar/honey PPO enough? How much is too much?
5. Assuming I like a hard bar of soap with lots of bubbles, is there any time when I should consider leaving out salt, sugar, or honey? I like to try lots of different ingredients and recipes and would prefer to avoid explosions and such. :shock:

Thanks as always.

 

[topcat]

Hey Mickey! I have read before that you add salt for hardness and was resigned to searching this forum until I found how much....so thank you for this timely thread...I am soaping tomorrow with a one oil test batch and had decided to add salt for hardness and honey for bubbles. I am using RBO so it needs both :wink:

I will report back how it all goes. At this stage I am planning on adding the salt to my lye water and the honey to my oils. As I am only soaping with 500gm of RBO I planned on adding 1 tsp of salt and 1 tsp of honey. I suggest that sugar and honey will be easily burned by the lye so are best added to the oils or at trace.

Tanya

 

[xyxoxy]

Thanks Tanya... yes please let me know how it turns out. I am also interested in trying RBO but just have not gotten to it.

I didn't think about the issue of burning the sugar... could end up with caramelized soap which may be kinda cool! I think I recall one post that said to use 1 TABLESPOON of honey PPO... but that was after I made the batch with one tsp.

 

[Callmebubbles]

If you are worried about burning, I find honey powder added at trace has thew same effect, but no over heating. I dont know if you are able to get some, but its lovely stuff. Great in scrubs too..

 

[AshleyR]

I add the "simple syrup" mixture to every batch at trace. I add about a tbsp. for a 3.5 lb batch of oils. Works awesome for me!

I've never tried salt!