Teach Soap

Okay I am a little bit confused on milk soaping. I watched Anne-Marie and saw that she used frozen milk, but it was frozen in tiny pieces. I got the book Everything Soapmaking and she suggests melting the frozen milk to a slurry, then soaping, but somewhat slowly, but quicker than Anne-Marie suggested. We soaped at about 50 degrees. That's what caused my lye spots. So did we go TOO slow? Or too many ice cubes? The lye mixture was thick. And while it was not brown it gave off an odor that was a bit stronger. We used concentrated goats milk in a can. When I added the lye solution it did NOT want to mix at first. (865% olive oil- pure from BB, and 15% coconut oil). Took us about 10 minutes and a rather hot stick blender to get to thin trace. Spots showed up 4 days later, but we soap in an area that was honestly not visited since removing it from the mold the next day so it could have been sooner.

I am a bit confused on when and how to add milk- of any kind. I also watched a video of a soaper who really knows her stuff making chocolate soap. She added cream to her pot of soap at traace it looked like to me. She also added her cocoa powder here. This may have been a little bit right before trace. I don;t know if I can say her name here or not so I won't.

So when do you add milk? Do you add just a little bit or replace all the water with milk? We wanted to make a goats milk soap. Color me a little bit confused at this point....

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~Dharlee

There are all different ways to soap with milk. The best thing to do is try it each way to see what you like best. I personally hate the frozen/slushy milk method. I gel all my soap so I don't really care about having a nice light colored bar. If I use fresh milk, I'll add it at trace as part of my water amount. My favorite method is to use powdered milk stick blended into my oils before adding my lye water.

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Linda
I know the voices in my head aren't real, but they sure have some great ideas!

My "normal, Plain Jane" soap recipe calls for 570grams of water. I use 470grams of water for the lye, and have room-temp cream or coconut milk which I don't put in until the lye & fats are emulsified well, but a bit before trace. The soap comes out a nice light translucent ivory every time.

I like coconut milk because it's plentiful & lathers like mad. Also, for me, it's better than water when doing a rebatch, just seems to make everything come together more nicely for some reason I don't understand...

I only wish decent powdered milk was available here. Sadly, it's all irradiated "long-life" boxed milk or comes in a plastic bag. Yuk! The cream is not irradiated, tho, so that's why I use it.

Finally, this year I got the hookup with Julio, who comes on horsecart to deliver fresh milk every week. But I've been putting that into coffee & cheese instead of soap.

Thank you!!!

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~Dharlee