Were it not for disasters, I might get cocky!LOL

[pjb31apb]

So I am totally taking advantage of participating in the Spring Swap and am making a ton of different soaps until something says "earth day" to me. This morning I was going to try an unscented soap with honey and coconut milk. This is the biggest batch I have done so far, note to self, more lye=more heat!

Well my rec called for 20 oz of liquid for a 5lb batch. I thought I would be safe adding 5 oz of coconut milk to 15oz H2O with a Tbsp of honey dissolved in it. Guess what happened?

It burned, curdled and cracked my "heat resistant" pitcher in about 15 different places. THANK GOODNESS I didn't end up with that mess all over my kitchen! What a bummer though because I wasted 10 oz of lye and my silk! Oh well keeps me humble. Back to the drawing board and using H2O only! LOL

 

[Barb]

you can still do this.

either add the coconut milk to your oils before adding the lye water, just sb it well, or add it at trace. or freeze it into cubes and add it to the water before adding the lye. if you think it is still going to get extremely hot, set the pitcher in a cold water bath before adding the lye to it.

you have to watch, some coconut milks have guar gum in it, it can mess with the lye.

as for the honey i would add it to my warm oils and stir it well to dissolve before adding the lye water.

the more things you add before the lye water for me works better, especially if adding a fragrance oil i have never used before. sometimes there just isn't enough time to add things when you add the fragrance oil and get instant soap on a stick.

and i know i will get someone to come along and say they just open the can of coconut milk and dump it in room temp. but i have never had much luck using things other then water for my lye liquid unless it was really cold or frozen. this way it doesn't start cooking from the heat

barb

 

[pjb31apb]

I have soaped with coconut milk twice bafore and I always froze them into cubes before I added them to my lye. I just wanted to use silk in this batch and was a bit unsure about adding it at trace since the FO's still catch me from time to time. Anyway, that's what I get for fixing something that wasn't broke! :roll: