Goat milk soap works well and many people know it. Of course you can make milk soap with other kinds of milk. Cleopatra supposedly used soap made with donkey milk. I personally prefer my soap made with Jersey cow milk. But in any case, lots of people want goat milk soap. Here are 5 tips for making it better, based on my experience making about 35,000 bars of milk soap.
Don't Add Water
Some soap makers want you to add water to the milk and use a diluted milk solution for the liquid. It isn't necessary and then whatever positive attributes you get with the milk are diluted. Don't do it. Just use the milk straight. Let's make the good stuff!
Freeze The Milk
It really makes managing the whole milk soap process easier if you freeze the milk. It's easier to store and easier to deal with. You'll see more why that is in a second. Freeze the milk in a plastic milk jug until you need it, then take it out and let it partially melt. Here's why that helps.
Control The Temperature
The secret to beautiful milk soap is controlled temperature. Just dump lye in milk and the huge spike in temperature actually scorches the milk. It carmelizes it and turns it a burnt brown.
All you need do is keep the pan with your milk in it in an ice water bath while you mix in the lye. By having partially frozen, slushy milk to start with, controlling temperature becomes all that much easier. Monitor the temperature and keep it under about 150 F and your soap will stay a beautiful ivory color. It's easy to do.
Blend It Well
Some of the milk fat starts to turn to soap as you mix lye into milk. That results in little globules of soap in the lye and milk mix. It doesn't really hurt anything, but it may show in the finished soap. To eliminate that possibility, you can mix the lye and milk solution very well before pouring it in the base oils. Always be very careful with lye mixes. This is one dangerous material.
Why Not Share It?
Another option you gain if you make beautiful milk soap is the possibility to market it. The demand exists for handmade soap, especially milk soap. Finding the people who want it can present problems, but find them and you may suddenly be able to make all the soap you can stand.
Goat milk soap is perceived as a premium product. Make it the right way and it not only works well, it looks beautiful too. Just a few careful steps separate mediocre soap from gourmet soap.
Al Bullington and his family made and sold soap for years and developed a system for making money with natural soap and related products like salves and shampoo.
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