A Squeaky Clean Husband

I have always wanted to make my own soap.

Now that Martha and Mellie's milk production is in full swing, I have surplus goat milk to experiment with.  Armed with some advice from soap making guru Jayne, a Grandma-sized babysitter for Alistair, a highly reviewed goat milk soap recipe, and a strong desire to overcome my fear of working with lye, I finally felt ready to embark on my first goat milk soap making adventure.

I started the night before by freezing my raw, filtered goat milk.

Then next morning, I cut the frozen milk into chunks and slowly stirred in the lye keeping the mixture as cool as possible on a bowl of ice.

I then melted the solid oils (coconut oil and shea butter) and then mixed in the oils that are liquid at room temperature.

Using the immersion blender, I mixed everything together until the saponification process began; in soap making terminology this is called "trace".

I blended until medium trace (pudding consistency) and then poured the mixture into a silicone mold.

I let it harden enough to be removed from the mold and set the bars on a towel to cure in my closet for 6 weeks.

Here is the recipe I followed.

As with anything new, I would do a few things differently next time.

1) The recipe makes a lot; I would cut it in half.
2) I would freeze the milk in a thinner layer so it is easier to cut into chunks.
3) I need to do more research on the amount of fragrance to use to get a lasting scent - I think it is more than I used because my soap does not smell at all despite using a whole bottle of sweet orange scented oil.
4) I over-mixed because it was difficult to fill the mold properly.  I will mix to thin trace next time instead of medium.

Aside from that, things went really well for my first time.  I can definitely see how some people find soap making addictive.  I cannot wait to try again, improve my process and make "prettier" bars.  How the heck we will use of all the "imperfect" soap I make in the meantime is a really good question.  It kind of reminds me of all the "failure" loaves of bread Ian ate while I was refining my bread making skills.  I can make a mean loaf of bread now, though.  Maybe my soap making experimentation just means that, from this point forward, I will have a very clean husband.

Goat Milk Soap Recipe (I already halved the recipe for future use)

Coconut oil – 10 oz
Olive oil – 10 oz
Rice bran oil – 2.5 oz
Avocado oil – 2.5 oz
Castor oil – 2 oz
Shea butter – 2.5 oz
Sweet Almond oil – 2.5 oz

Goat’s milk – 9 oz
Lye – 4.5 oz