How to Make Goat’s Milk Soap
Today I made some Oatmeal, Milk and Honey soap. My basic recipe is 45% soft oils, 40% hard oils, and 15% butters, with a 4% superfat because the goat’s milk also adds fats. The amount of milk is about twice the amount of lye. This method is not for beginners, but you can use an online soap calculator such as SoapCalc to figure out a recipe with the ingredients that you have or like. I added some pulverized rolled oats (do not use quick oats!), some local honey, and some Oatmeal, Milk and Honey fragrance oil.
Making soap with goat’s milk is a little bit different than using water. The lye heats up whatever liquid you add it to, so there are several things you need to do to prevent the goat’s milk from being scorched by the lye.
The first thing I do is melt all the oils the night before so that they are cooled to room temperature.
Another thing I do is freeze all the goat’s milk in ice cube trays.
When the lye is added to the frozen milk, it will melt it. You have to be sure to stir it really well to get the lye completely dissolved. I had to scrape down the sides of the bowl too. This is a great time to have your goggles, rubber gloves and apron on!
As soon as all the milk is melted, the temperature of the lye solution is still only 65-70 degrees. I add it to the oils and use my stick blender to mix them. When the mixture starts to thicken, I add the oats, honey, and fragrance and mix some more.
I like to pour my soap when it is still pretty thin – about like pancake batter.
Once it is in the mold, I cover the top with plastic wrap and tape it down. The soap will still try to heat up after it’s in the mold, so I put it up on blocks and turn on the fan.
Some soapmakers will put the soap in the refrigerator or freezer at this point. My mold won’t fit in either, so this works for me. I will cut this soap into bars in a couple of days after it has a chance to set up and isn’t too sticky.
If anyone has questions or comments, I’d love to hear them!
May 27th, 2008 at 8:38 am
I’ve been gearing up to try my hand at CP soap, Goat’s Milk in particular. I’m so glad you posted this! I’ll be coming back to read it a million times before I actually dig in! Lol
May 27th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Hey Elizabeth – I would definitely make regular CP soap with water before attempting a goat’s milk batch just so you know what it “looks like”. Let me know if you have any questions about either process, k?
May 27th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
Yea, I think thats what’s been putting me off so far. Lol. I will try a small batch (or 2 or 3) before doing the Milk ones
July 30th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
How to Make Goat’s Milk Soap « Great Cakes Soapworks…
How to make goat’s milk soap with fresh goat’s milk. This tutorial is for experienced soapmakers only….
March 19th, 2010 at 9:24 pm
Hi
Thank you for your information about how to make handmade goat milk soap. I’ve been trying to make handmade goat milk soap for the last 4-5 months. I used half water and half milk to get the color I wanted. I let the oils cool down with room temparature and cool lye solution. I pured the cool milk to the oil and the lye solution which was dissolved with water to the oil and I use strick blender to mix it.
The result was I got lye granule flying around my large 3 batches ( 12 lbs batches ). It wasn’t my measurement and I was not because sodium hydroxide didn’t dissolve completely because it happened with all 3 batches. Do you know why? How can I solve this problem?
Thank you for your help
Cindy
March 20th, 2010 at 11:29 am
@Cindy – If you like to use half water, half goat’s milk, then freeze the water and goat’s milk in ice cube trays, and add the lye to the frozen milk & water. Once all the milk & water is melted, you can add it to the oils and blend.
June 12th, 2010 at 5:24 pm
When I first made soap, no one told me that I should try regular cp before making goat’s milk soap.
So, I jumped in with both feet, and never looked back. Only when I got involved in some soaping sites, did I learn that goats milk soap was supposedly difficult. I’ve never had it burn the milk, I have had it turn it a bright yellow.
June 14th, 2010 at 3:57 pm
You can add the milk a little later in the process, by mixing the lye/water to the oils, hand stir for a few minutes, then add the milk. I’ve used this process and it seems to work well, though it will still heat up quite a bit.
June 14th, 2010 at 6:21 pm
@jett – Yep, I’ve done it that way too. By freezing the milk though, I can use all goat’s milk for the liquid portion of my soap and it won’t overheat.