I'm getting ready to try my very first batch of soap. I have been looking at different recipes and I'm wondering: If a recipe calls for distilled water, can you replace that for goats milk? Thanks :0)
You need to be a member of Nigerian Dwarf Dairy Goats to add comments!
Replies
No problem! I learn a lot from people's questions and mistakes. I used to think it wasn't a big deal when I saw recipes that were super specific about temperatures -- until I started hearing stories of horrible mishaps because people were trying to get those temps just right. Stories of lye being spilled on someone or drank by someone because it was sitting in the kitchen cooling while the soapmaker went to the bathroom. And then there was one lady who literally blew up her microwave because by the time her oils were cool enough, according to the recipe she was using, her lye was too cool, so she put it in the microwave to heat it up again! And that was totally unnecessary.
Thanks for the advice! I think I'm going to just try your recipe to begin with!! Can't wait :0) Thanks for all you do to help us all.
Olive, coconut, and palm is a very common combination, and it makes a nice soap. I personally use about 50% olive oil because I have sensitive skin. If the person teaching the class sells his soap, however, he probably uses a larger proportion of coconut/palm because they are cheaper, and the bar will last longer, which makes customers happy. I don't know about the lye because he mixes units of measurements. I tell people to ALWAYS double check the lye measurement with a lye calculator online because you never know when someone makes a typo or something. I once saw a blog post that had an amount that was obviously wrong, and I emailed the person. She had the decimal in the wrong place! Hopefully no one used her recipe without double checking before she corrected it. This is the lye calculator I use - http://www.thesage.com/calcs/lyecalc2.php Just fill in the blanks with your oil quantities, and click calculate. BTW, I don't know WHY people use odd amounts like 25.2 ounces. When I make up my recipes, I use all whole numbers to keep my life simple. Making it complicated just leads to mistakes. So, feel free to round off those oil amounts to whole numbers when putting them into the lye calculator. It will then tell you how much lye you need for the quantities of each oil that you input.
On the essential oils, it will vary depending upon the oil. Usually you need about 4-7% based upon weight of your fixed oils, so for the amount of oil you have, you'd use 3 ounces of EO. You may want to go a little heavier on citrus (3.5 ounces) because they tend to fade quickly, but only 2.5 on mints because they're stronger. If you were using tea tree oil, you would only want to use about an ounce because that stuff is heavy duty!
I always recommend that people start with a small and simple recipe the first couple times so if it's a total flop, you haven't wasted much. In fact, starting with an unscented is even better because the essential oils tend to be the most expensive ingredient, AND sometimes an essential oil or fragrance oil can accelerate trace, and if you wind up with a batch seizing, that is NOT fun.
Oh and I have your book and have been looking at your recipes also!! LOL forgot about that one :0)
I don't have a specific recipe I am planning on using yet. I have 3 books I have been reading and they have recipes in them. The first book I have is Handmade Soap by Tatyana Hill, the second book is The SoapMaker's Companion by Susan Miller Cavitch and the last book is The Natural Soap Book by the same author. One of the recipes that interested me, but think it is a little advance for my first time making soap is called Personal Masseuse and its on page 34 of the book The Soapmaker's Companion. I went to a soap making class and he gave us his personal recipe. His recipe is as follows:
25.2 ozs Olive Oil
19.2 ozs Coconut Oil
16.8 OZS Palm Oil
Heat this container to approximately 90-100 degrees F @ temperature- 25 drops Grapefruit Seed Extract
241 GMS NaOH (Lye)
30.6 OZS Milk (unpasteurized and frozen)
This solution should produce enough heat as part of the reaction to attain approximately 100 degrees F
54 mLS Essential Oils
How does this sound?
Since I saw Amy's question in the "frozen milk" thread, I gotta ask you to show us your recipe and instructions, assuming it's online. She reminded me of how much bad info is out there, and I don't want you to fail! :)
Yes.