Teach Soap

The first of many, I'm sure!

So I'm reading, reading, reading, learning about all these wonderful sounding things. I did get my hands on Swift's "Lotionmaking 101" and the "Formulating Lotions" book she did (don't hold me to the title of that second one). Also have Anne Watson's "Simple Lotionmaking" ordered, and the Marie Gale book on labeling as well.

Anyway, here's the first question: I've been seeing mentions of goats' milk lotion, which I certainly want to try. I make GM soap, so I am well aware of the benefits of GM in body/skin care products.

The standard seems to be to keep the GM at 10% so you don't overwhelm your preservative.

So, 10% of what?

Let's say I'm going to make a 100 gram batch of lotion. If my recipe calls for 70% water, and I want to use goats milk, is it 10% of the water amount? So I would be using 63 grams of water and 7 grams of goats milk?

Or would it be 10% of the entire ingredients, which would be 10 grams of GM? I know three grams isn't a huge difference, but as I'm brand spanking new at this, I don't want to make any rash assumptions.

My other question came up while wandering through the archives of this section. Somebody was having difficulty filling lotion bottles, and one suggestion was to use the squeezable condiment bottles like you could get at a restaurant supply place. The person who made that suggestion said she washed and reused her condiment bottles from batch to batch.

Um, okay, the rule seems to be don't attempt to sterilize containers in a home environment, 'cuz it can't be done. And ditto on reusing containers that have previously held lotion, whether something commercial or one that had previously held the hand made stuff.

Another suggestion was to use either a plastic baggie-type thing with a corner cut off, or a disposable cake decorating bag. If the question is can the filling apparatus be cleaned enough, I'd be more inclined towards the baggie or icing bag - I'd worry too much about cross-contamination. My preference would be to use something that would be used only once.

Or am I overthinking this?

Thanks for the help. I can already promise, more to come!

Anita

The 10% would be the milk that's included in your water phase. So you would subtract the 10% from your water. So it would be 60% water and 10% milk. I always use a bag with a snipped hole. I won't use condiments bottles and reuse them because there could be mold spores (or other germs) in that condiment bottle from the last time. That would introduce it to the next batch you make. My bag for filling is only used once, then thrown away.

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.