Goats Milk Soap

I have a friend with eczema and allergies in her family, and she buys unscented, uncolored goats milk soap--from Canada. While goats milk is a little more complicated than other soap, I felt pretty certain I could do it cheaper and easier for her.  So I set about making some today. 

First, I composed a recipe with the help of a soap calculator. I wanted a bar with oils that were good for eczema, avoided the tree-nut allergy, and would create a nice hard bar. I normally use shea butter for hardness, but subbed in cocoa butter instead. I added avocado oil for the eczema. Since each oil requires a different amount of lye to saponify, it is imperative to run a recipe through a lye calculator, so that you end up with a safe bar. 

Recipe in hand, I started by measuring the oils. 

Scale is extremely necessary.  The tare function is neat.

Oils and butters.

Castor oil and avocado oil are already liquids at room temperature, so they just need to be measured into the bowl. Cocoa butter is extremely hard at room temperature, so I wanted to wait and melt it just before mixing. 

Coconut oil requires melting first.

At this point, I would also measure out fragrance or essential oils and any colorants required, but I wanted an unscented and uncolored batch, so I moved right on to the lye solution. 

In a standard batch, I would measure distilled water, measure the lye, dump the lye in the water--never the other way around--then mix until the lye dissolved. While wearing gloves, protective goggles, long sleeves, and shoes, because lye is no joke. I also mix the solution outside to minimize the noxious fumes. The solution heats to about 200 degrees, so I then put the pot in a tray of ice water to cool it to between 90 and 110 degrees. 

However, goats milk soap is a little different. The distilled water is replaced by milk. And the little trick about milk is that it will turn orange and smell terrible if it gets too hot and the proteins burn. Adding lye to milk is a great way to get it too hot. To prevent this, I froze the goats milk and made my sink an ice bath. Oddly, milk and lye doesn't create the noxious fumes that water and lye creates, so I could do it inside. 

You must wear gloves and goggles when dealing with lye.  That shit'll eat yours eyes and skin off.

I put the frozen goats milk in the pot and allowed it to form a little puddle, to give me some liquid to begin mixing. Then, after donning goggles and gloves, I added a little lye at a time, mixing, allowing the milk to melt a bit, and making sure it didn't get too hot. I managed to mix everything in without burning the milk, so I was pretty proud of myself. If anything, I think I might have kept the mixture too cold. 

Once I was happy with my lye/milk solution, I melted the cocoa butter. This took a bit of time, but I eventually had liquid butter to add to the other oils. I then placed the bowl in the sink, added my lye/milk, and started blending. 

Finished goats milk solution

I was mainly concerned with two things:  not letting the batter get so hot that it burns the milk, and not letting the batter get too cold, in which case the cocoa butter might start to harden and cause false trace. It took longer to reach trace than most batches (probably because the lye was cold), but it got there, and I popped it in the mold. 

In the mold!  Saran wrap to cut down on ash.

I didn't actually insulate it with the towel shown, because milk can cause a batch to overheat in the mold and erupt out. Some folks choose to pour a milk soap in the mold and then put it immediately in the freezer to keep it cold and keep it from going through gel phase. I left it uninsulated and on the corner, keeping an eye on it to make sure it did hit gel phase (signaling to me that it was a true trace and not false). 

I am excited to unmold it tomorrow and see how it turns out!