Teach Soap

I recently bought Anne L Watson's "Milk Soapmaking" book, and made some yoghurt soap. Unfortunately, patience has never been my strong point. I gelled some, and refrigerated some, and I knew I should leave the ungelled longer before unmolding. But did I? NO!! The gelled bars are nice and smooth, but the ungelled - I'll let the pics do the talking. I made another batch yesterday, and I've promised myself not to even look at them until tomorrow. So far so good.

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Suzanne
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My other pic disappeared. Here it is again - hopefully. The soaps have turned out a very pale cream colour. When I poured, they were a real butter yellow! By the way, I used a stick blender for the first time with these. I was very nervous, and when it was all mixed and creamy, I went back to my wooden spoon! But yesterday I used the blender the whole time- saved myself about 15 or 20 minutes. Stick Blenders Rule.

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Suzanne
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Before unmolding your un-gelled soap, try putting them in the freezer for an hour or so. It may help keep the soap together without leaving some in the mold. Also, do you lube your molds? I used to use Pam spray or a light coat of vaseline. That would help sometimes. I love the color BTW.

I think it came out well! If you don't like the top of the soap, try a vegetable peeler and bevel them.

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

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Haven

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

Thanks! I learned that from you!!

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Haven

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I never thought about the spoon breaking down. I use a slotted plastic one for mixing the lye, then go to the wooden. I'll give that a miss from now on. By the way, what is PAM? Is it just a spray oil? We have olive and canola here in spray cans. Would they be OK? I thought if you use a vege oil, it would saponify with the soap, and stick to the mold. Thanks again.

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Suzanne
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PAM is a cooking spray. If you don't have that, you could use a very small amount of mineral oil, vaseline or dimethicone.

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

Thanks Soapbuddy, I thought mineral oils would be preferable. I have some cheap baby oil I can use. (Wouldn't put it on a baby, though!)

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Suzanne
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Suzanne your soaps are so beautiful! They look like soft velvet baby soaps! Did you scent them? I am curious where you got your recipe for the yogurt soap, or did you develop the recipe yourself?

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~bytheSEAsoap~ Mella bythesea, bythesea, bythebeautiful sea

海の皂

Thanks Mella. The recipe was from a book by Anne L Watson. It's called Milk Soapmaking, and she has recipes for yoghurt, buttermilk, sour cream, all types of milk, cream, and butter. She's experimented, and devised two foolproof methods of making milk soap, one for liquid milk, and one for powdered. I made the buttermilk just now - still in the fridge. It's a fantastic book, I'd recommend it to anyone wanting to make milk soaps. BTW, the buttermilk recipe is just buttermilk and olive oil. Took me less than 10 minutes with the SB. Magic

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Suzanne
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