When to add sugar?

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tarkus

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Hi All,

I made shampoo bar once and I added manuka honey when I was preparing the lye. after I added the honey lye water turned dark brown. Some people suggest to add honey on light trace. I never tried adding honey on light trace yet and my question is what do you recommend? add honey while mixing the lye? or while getting to light trace? any idea ?

thanks

Andre
 
You could add honey or sugar dissolved in some water( taken out of your total water before adding lye) directly to the oils and stick blend before adding the lye water.
 
I always add my honey to my cooled lye solution. I like adding it this way because I don't end up with weeping honey in my soap, or unsightly 'honey dots', which look exactly how they sound. And my soap also does not overheat when I add the honey to the lye.

First I mix the honey in a little bit of my water amount to thin it out before adding it into my cooled lye solution. Yep- once I mix it into my lye solution, the solution turns so dark that it's almost black, but my finished soap turns out much lighter than that, and it smells wonderful- like a Bit 'O Honey' candy bar.



IrishLass :)
 
I add it in the form of a sugar solution (1 TB of 50/50 distilled water:sugar, I do it this way so that I don't have to measure/mix/dissolve each time) to pretty much all my water based additives, SB well, and then add at emulsion. I am not sure if this is better/worse than any other way, but it has worked so far, so I'll wait until something goes wrong to tinker! I suspect that if these different ways are working for different people, any would be ok for you, it just depends on what is easiest for you in your soaping process.
 
The first time I used honey I stick blended it in at trace and then poured. I had added too much and the loaf overheated causing a big crack and a big bubble of honey colored soap to ooze out of the top. The finished soap was a lovely amber color and smelled wonderful but had honey colored lather.

Now I add the honey to my lye solution and then let it rest until it reaches room temp. I love watching the color of the lye water change from light yellow to dark brown. Very cool. I use honey when I want a little of that golden color to come through in the soap.

One caveat though...I use mylar sheets to line my molds and sometimes the soap will stick to the mylar if it gets too hot. I use a fan to keep the soap from overheating so I get smooth sides.
 
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