# Best recipes for newbies:



## HorsesNGoats (Feb 5, 2015)

I raise dairy goats and would love to start making goat milk soaps and lotions. Anyone have any good recipes? Any tips? Anything to stay away from? Cool scents? Lotion recipes? I've heard of natural preservatives, is that a thing? And anything more on the natural side would be awesome! Thanks!


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## NostalgicGranny (Aug 22, 2007)

As far as I know there aren't any natural preservatives. 

For goats milk soap you want to keep your temps low. I hp so most of what I do with goats milk soap probably would not apply to cp soapmaking.


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## MullersLaneFarm (Jul 23, 2004)

On my soapmaking page, I have pictures of making milk soap using 100% milk for the lye solution (even have a page making whole milk HP soap) 

(cp= cold process hp=hot process)

The first link has recipes (just sub the water amount with frozen milk chunks) and suppliers.

Try to stay away from floral fragrance oils at first. They will accelerate trace and you could end up with soap-on-a-stick.

There are a few new preservative products that are natural (usually various tree barks that are high innatural salicylates), but stay away from ROE & Vitamin E ... those are anti-oxidants.

Jen Welch has all types of preservative products on her preservative page. 

Chose carefully. Personally, I stay away from any preservative that contains parabens.

When making a milk lotion, the milk must be pasteurized and some milk lotion makers state that the milk should be kept at 10% or below total formulation. Regardless, use the lotion containing milk up quickly ... since it will be pasteurized, I imagine it will sour (ewww)


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## NostalgicGranny (Aug 22, 2007)

MullersLane Your hp soap was probably soft because it was 100% OO (olive oil). Usually the batter is extra thick and we add up to 50% water/fluid to keep the batter fluid and easy to manage. Generally to keep hp milk soaps white we soap on low or warm. Yours gave off the caramelized smell because you soaped on high. It does take a lot longer to cook on low but you can usually get a white or light soap. As soon as it is molded stick it in the freezer or fridge. Freezer is better. The quicker it cools down the lighter your soap will be. 1 tsp Salt ppo (per pound oil) in the lye water helps to make a harder bar. Sodium lactate really helps to harden the bar and make it a bit more fluid with HP too. With anything but pure OO I would have added extra water to the batter too.


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## bowdonkey (Oct 6, 2007)

Can salt be added to the lye water in CP soaps?


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## NostalgicGranny (Aug 22, 2007)

Yes salt can be added 1 tsp PPO. Sugar can be added at 1 tsp ppo too.


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## bowdonkey (Oct 6, 2007)

NostalgicGranny said:


> Yes salt can be added 1 tsp PPO. Sugar can be added at 1 tsp ppo too.


Thanks granny. I'll try the salt, just to expetiment. Done the sugar years ago and I guess it made the soap lather more?


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## HorsesNGoats (Feb 5, 2015)

MullersLaneFarm said:


> On my soapmaking page, I have pictures of making milk soap using 100% milk for the lye solution (even have a page making whole milk HP soap)
> 
> (cp= cold process hp=hot process)
> 
> ...


Can I use a regular blender if I don't have a stick blender?


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## MullersLaneFarm (Jul 23, 2004)

A regular blender (or a mixer) will put air into the soap, which isn't a bad thing but your soap may float and not last as long. You can always hand stir also. If you hand stir, you'll want to make sure your soap batter stays warm enough (higher than the highest melting point of your oils) so you won't experience false trace, which is usually when the solid oils cool down to the point they start to solidify again. Placing your soap pot in a sink of hot water is a way to avoid this.

Granny, I think you are correct that if I left the crockpot on low the soap would have been a lighter color. Since at the time HP is molded, the mixture is now soap, you would not gain anything by putting it in the freezer or refrigerator. Since the soap mixture got hot a lot more quickly than it would have if done CP and gelled, I believe the milk carmelized causing the scent and the color.

I still believe the soap was soft because of using the full liquid amount (12 oz milk for 32 oz of olive oil). If I were to make this recipe using the Cold Process, I would have only used 8 oz of milk for the lye solution for the 32 oz of Olive Oil.

When I say, "If I were to make", I'm referring only using 32 oz of Olive Oil. When I make a 100% OO soap, I use 160 oz of OO. My soaps are rock hard hours after I unmold them.

I make sure my milk soaps (and I've been making milk soaps exclusively for almost 14 years) reach a full gel by stacking 50 lb of soap and double wrapping in heavy wool blankets. They usually reach a gel temp about 180*-190*F ... about what the temp of the HP soap was, but it might take 12 hours to reach that temperature. My result is a very light colored soap that is rock hard that I don't have to babysit for hours.


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## NostalgicGranny (Aug 22, 2007)

It's pretty common with us hp-ers to put the soap in the freezer as soon as it is molded. For HP it stops the shrunken head syndrome when the soap sinks in the middle. Completely by accident I discovered the difference in color. One day I didn't have room for both molds in the freezer so I left one on the counter and froze the other. There was a very noticeable color difference. The one in the freezer was almost white, and the one on the counter turned tan. So now iif I am going for a white or light color it goes straight in the freezer. If I am looking for a dark color I leave it out.


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## MullersLaneFarm (Jul 23, 2004)

I've always found it was the temperature of the milk/lye solution that mostly dictated the final color of the soap with retarding or encouraging gel stage as a secondary consideration. The lower the temp of the milk/lye solution, the lighter the soap. Gelling increases the color a little.

I just can't wrap my head around how finished soap (HP) could change colors based on the temperature. I made 4 logs of soap yesterday (2 each of 2 different fragrances). I'm about to unmold them. I think I'll pop one of each in the freezer to see if it makes a difference.

Shrunken head! I've always loved that name for soap but it so nicely describes what it looks like. I've always thought it was more about the amount of liquid used in the lye solution that when the excess liquid is removed the soap shrinks. Hmmm, now you have me wondering if placing it in the freezer will remove the excess moisture faster.

I'm loading 'before' pics from my phone. I'll take new pictures tomorrow when I remove the logs from the freezer.


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## MullersLaneFarm (Jul 23, 2004)

Not the best FO for this test, but when the customer wants logs of them, I make them!


Black Vanilla Pre Freezer. The one on the right will go into the freezer



















Honey + Almond. Pre Freezer. The one on the right will go into the freezer


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## MullersLaneFarm (Jul 23, 2004)

Well, I'll be darn.

I even asked other long time soapers, including one that taught chemistry, about this.

They all could not understand why putting soap in the freezer would affect the color.
.
.
.
But it did










This is at 8:56 AM CST

I'll monitor it until it ships out in a couple days.


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## MullersLaneFarm (Jul 23, 2004)

24 hours after removing from the freezer. To the naked eye (no flash reflection) the two logs on the left are almost identical in color.


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## MullersLaneFarm (Jul 23, 2004)

Final picture before shipping out today.

The Honey Almond is on the right, Black Vanilla on the left

Can you tell which of each of them spent 24 hours in the freezer?


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## NostalgicGranny (Aug 22, 2007)

I've been wracking my brain trying to figure out where else I have heard the gel or not to gel thing and colors changing. Soap Queen did a small little page on it and said their were some slight color differences. But somewhere else online there was a more in depth discussion about the color differences between gelled and non gelled. At the time I thought it might be more of a heat thing since my hp soaps are already gelled when they are done cooking and I have noticed color differences. But I can see this will take a more in depth study. 

For anyone else following this, there are some fundamental differences between MullersLane's milk soaps and mine. She uses 100% milk for hers and Cp's. I do not. My soap is hp'd and the milk actually goes in after the gel phase. It is really interesting to see the differences we can achieve with the subtle variations of personal style. The most important thing is to find what works for you.


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## rfay (Apr 9, 2006)

For Natural preservatives, Naturegard, Willow Bark extract and Leucidal Liquid SF are supposed to work really well. I will be trying them out soon.

Fay


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