Homemade Cold Processed Goat Milk Soap

Goat's milk soap is beneficial to the skin.

People are attracted to handmade soap because of the properties it offers. Handmade soap is natural and free of synthetic detergents, which can be drying to our skin. The cold process technique simply requires the combining of oils, water and lye to make soap. Goat's milk soap is a specialty soap in which some or all of the water portion of liquid is replaced by goat milk.

Things You'll Need

• Spoons
• Plastic or stainless steel containers
• Oils
• Frozen goat's milk
• Lye
• Stainless steel whisk
• Stick blender
• Color
• Fragrance or essential oils
• Scale
• Goggles
• Gloves
• Mold

Instructions

1. 

   Digital scales are a must-have to weighing out materials.

   Measure out the supplies for your recipe ahead of time. Having all your supplies pre-measured and readily available makes the process easier for you. When measuring your lye, always be extremely accurate to avoid a lye-heavy soap.

2. 

   Stainless steel containers do not react with lye.

   Carefully add the lye to frozen goat's milk in a stainless steel or plastic container. The lye should always be added to the liquid, not the other way around. If you pour liquid over lye, you may get a volcanic reaction. A volcanic reaction is when the lye liquid shoots up explosively. Since lye is a caustic material, this caution should be heeded. If you experience the lye volcano, wash it off your skin immediately and clean up the mess as soon as you have cleaned yourself off.

3. 

   There are many oils to choose from in soap-making.

   Combine your oils in a separate plastic or stainless steel container. Bring the lye and oils to the same temperature before combining. Since the oils may be a combination of liquid and hard, you may have to melt your hard oils, such as cocoa butter or palm kernel oil, before adding to the other oils.

4. 

   Slowly whisk the lye mixture into the container of oils. After the lye is completely added, use a stick blender to bring the soap to trace. Reaching trace means you have saponified the lye mixture and the oils. You know you have reached trace when you pull the stick blender out of the soap and drizzles remain on the surface of the liquid. There are three kinds of trace. Light trace is when the soap is in an extremely liquid format. The soap looks a bit like custard at medium trace and like thick pudding at thick trace.

5. 

   Use body-safe colorants and fragrance oils.

   Add any colors or fragrances. Mix the color and fragrances in thoroughly by using your stick blender in short pulses to help the process. The colors and fragrances must be body-safe. Mica powders and FD&C dyes are formulated especially for cosmetic purposes such as soap making.

6. 

   Freshly cut soap.

   Pour your soap into a mold and let it harden. Once the soap is hardened, usually within a day or two, release the soap from the mold and cut. Allow your soap to sit for at least 4 weeks prior to using. This allows the soap to harden and cure.

Tips & Warnings

• Lye-heavy soap should not be used. Contact your local waste department to dispose of caustic materials.

• Your soap must cure for at least 4 weeks before use.

References

• Goats Milk Soap

Resources

• Miller's Homemade Soap Page