Oatmeal Milk and honey CP Question

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Last night I made my usual recipe fr my OMH CP soap and I usually let it gel - no issues. But I never like how dark it is. So I wanted to try not letting it gel and see what I get. Welllll! I decided to refrigerate it after I poured it and when I took it out of the refrigerator this morning it had a crack right down the middle. It is a beautiful cream color that I love but it is partial gel.

What is the solution for getting the color I want and not the crack. I have no room in the freezer so that wasn't an option. Is that why I got the partial gel? Whats up with the crack? Still too hot in the refrigerator?

Best advise ls.
 
Does your recipe include honey and some sort of milk or is it just the OMH fragrance? I use oat milk and honey in my soap and it always come out creamy-colored. I soap at a very cool temperature (~90 degrees) and no gel and I just leave it in the utility room to cure. I do like to use individual molds too and I think that helps prevent gelling. Hope that helps.
 
The crack is a big indicator of heat. Honey will overheat my soap every time. An equal amount of sugar does not. I have no idea why.

You can CPOP it to get full gel, even after you cut the soap, just put it back into the mold and stick it into the oven.

To avoid gel in the future, do what suburbanrancher does and use individual molds. No chance for the heat to build up that way.
 
Honey is about 3x more sugars than sugar. When using it ss a replacement for sugar in cooking/baking, it os recommended to use 1/3 the amount of sugar called for. I follow the same rule for soap. I have only made OMH once and knew the fragrance would discolor regardless, but had no overheating or cracks with it left sitting on the counter.
 
Ive made this soap about a dozen times without issues except the color is dark which is what was trying to avoid this time. just thought if I dont gel it maybe it will come out a little lighter. Well it did come out lighter so its not the FO. But previously leaving it to gel where it would get super hot didnt cause it ever to crack. You would think that since I put it in the refrigerator it would be cooler and not have this effect. Who knows. I'll make it again and lower the amount of honey and see what happens. Same recipe different results.
 
This probably won't help you much since you are aiming for a light colored soap, but when I use honey in my soaps, I mix it with a little bit of water to thin it out first, then I add it directly into my completely cooled-off lye solution. I don't know the mechanism of how it works, but it takes all the overheating potential right out of it, letting my soap gel completely without any issues. I learned of the trick from a forum member named Soapbuddy some years ago, and it has never failed me. The only bugger about it is that the soap doesn't turn out light. It darkens to a light to medium tan.

Re: sugar vs honey- for what its worth, I've never had any overheating problems or discoloring issues with regular white sugar no matter how much I add, or how I add it. I normally add 2 tablespoons ppo to almost all my batches, but I've done as high as 4 tablespoons per pound before- all without any overheating/discoloring issues, and I soap warm and gel all my soaps, too. The only issue I had with the batch with 4 tbsp. sugar in it was that it sure made my finished soap quite soft. LOL


IrishLass :)
 
This probably won't help you much since you are aiming for a light colored soap, but when I use honey in my soaps, I mix it with a little bit of water to thin it out first, then I add it directly into my completely cooled-off lye solution. I don't know the mechanism of how it works, but it takes all the overheating potential right out of it, letting my soap gel completely without any issues. I learned of the trick from a forum member named Soapbuddy some years ago, and it has never failed me. The only bugger about it is that the soap doesn't turn out light. It darkens to a light to medium tan.

Re: sugar vs honey- for what its worth, I've never had any overheating problems or discoloring issues with regular white sugar no matter how much I add, or how I add it. I normally add 2 tablespoons ppo to almost all my batches, but I've done as high as 4 tablespoons per pound before- all without any overheating/discoloring issues, and I soap warm and gel all my soaps, too. The only issue I had with the batch with 4 tbsp. sugar in it was that it sure made my finished soap quite soft. LOL


IrishLass :)

Thats interesting about adding the honey to the lye water. I also add sugar to the lye water in all of my batches. Except when I make this soap because of the honey. Im going to try it and see. Any thoughts on why it overheated and cracked? I put it in the refrigerator for the first time ever. It also partial gelled so I have it in a 170 degree oven right now to see if I can get t to gel fully. I left it in for 30 minutes and turned the oven off. Ill leave overnight.
 
This probably won't help you much since you are aiming for a light colored soap, but when I use honey in my soaps, I mix it with a little bit of water to thin it out first, then I add it directly into my completely cooled-off lye solution. I don't know the mechanism of how it works, but it takes all the overheating potential right out of it, letting my soap gel completely without any issues. I learned of the trick from a forum member named Soapbuddy some years ago, and it has never failed me. The only bugger about it is that the soap doesn't turn out light. It darkens to a light to medium tan.

Re: sugar vs honey- for what its worth, I've never had any overheating problems or discoloring issues with regular white sugar no matter how much I add, or how I add it. I normally add 2 tablespoons ppo to almost all my batches, but I've done as high as 4 tablespoons per pound before- all without any overheating/discoloring issues, and I soap warm and gel all my soaps, too. The only issue I had with the batch with 4 tbsp. sugar in it was that it sure made my finished soap quite soft. LOL


IrishLass :)

IrishLass,
Very interesting about adding the honey to the lye water. Have you ever added the honey when the lye water was warmer than room temp? I usually soap when lye and oils are 110-120 and wondered if I could add the honey at that temp?
 
I suspect this time it cracked because the outside wasn't soft and pliable but stiff because it was cold. But as you didn't freeze it, the cold wasn't enough to keep the middle cool hence the partial gel and the crack from the expanding middle pushing against the hard outside.

If you wanted to try keeping it cool again, maybe some of the suggestions above would help make it so that the fridge alone is enough. If not, I would make space in the freezer or you'll most likely have this same situation next time
 
Any thoughts on why it overheated and cracked? I put it in the refrigerator for the first time ever..

Early on in my beginning soaping days, I put a soap or two in the fridge that cracked anyway, too. I always just put it down to an extraordinarily hot gel, but what the good Gent just said also makes a lot of sense to me.


mommycarlson said:
IrishLass,
Very interesting about adding the honey to the lye water. Have you ever added the honey when the lye water was warmer than room temp? I usually soap when lye and oils are 110-120 and wondered if I could add the honey at that temp?

I personally wouldn't add it to a warm solution. A cool room temp or even a cold solution is best, because it will heat your solution up. When I add the honey to my cool room temp solution, it heats it up to about 161F or so.

The first time I ever tried this method, I missed the part about making sure to add it to cooled-off lye solution and I actually added the honey to my entire batch amount of water and stirred well to dissolve it before adding in the lye......and promptly learned in a few nanoseconds to never, ever do that again. :lol:

Thankfully, the girl scout in me had the foresight to have used a tall pitcher three times as big as it needed to be and mixed it in the bathroom on the floor of the shower next to the drain, because it got really hot, hissed, spit and volcanoed to about 3" or so below the top of my container, and turned so dark that it looked black, but it really wasn't black- it was just a very dark shade of orange.

In spite of all that, though, I went ahead and used the solution anyway when it had cooled back down, and my soap actually came out perfectly fine. It went through full gel without any overheating or any other drama, and it came out of the mold smelling wonderfully of those Bit 'O Honey candies, and only discolored to a medium tan. It also didn't have any of those unsightly "weeping honey" spots that my previous batches of honey soap always seemed to come down with.

The next time I used the method, though, I learned about and heeded the advice to add it to already prepared & cooled-off lye solution, and things went much better, i.e., no hissing, spitting or volcanoing- only heat and discoloration of the lye solution to a dark burnt orange color.

For what it's worth, below is what the color of my fully gelled, finished honey soap looks like using the method of adding the honey to the cooled lye solution (by the way, the dripping honey you see is not real- it's just M&P soap that I poured into the 'honeycomb' cavities formed by my bubble-wrap liner):

IMG_3185HoneyBeeswaxSoapII640.JPG



IrishLass :)
 
The first time I ever tried this method, I missed the part about making sure to add it to cooled-off lye solution and I actually added the honey to my entire batch amount of water and stirred well to dissolve it before adding in the lye......and promptly learned in a few nanoseconds to never, ever do that again. :lol:

I did that once before too, and it's something I'll never forget! Sadly I was using a shallower container for my lye, and the next two hours involved cleaning up dark lye water from the counter and floor.

I remember pouring the lye in and giving it a gentle stir and thinking "wow, is this ever changing color fast". Within seconds it erupted in a really violent reaction and I literally ran from the room while it volcanoed all over. Good thing too because my footwear wasn't protective. I think there was only half an inch of dark lye solution left inside the container when I was finally able to get close enough to look inside.

Your honey soap looks lovely by the way. That beveling is really cool. I have a friend who works as a manager at Lee Valley Tools in the manufacturing building. I'm trying to convince him to give me a deal on one. Haha!
 
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Thank you IrishLass, for the tips. I will make sure to do that next time I make a honey soap. Your soap is beautiful! I was thinking as I looked at it, (in my haste to see the photo) before I read the text and thought "wow, that's a lot of honey" LOL.
 
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