Milk Soap Recipe

Milk Soap Recipe. A moisturizing and nourishing soap bar recipe using cow or goat’s milk, homemade lard, coconut oil, as well as herbs & EO’s!

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Yet another way I feel our family milk cow provides abundance and nourishment for our family and community.

Milk soap.

As if milk, cream, butter, cheese and then extra milk for family and friends wasn’t enough!

I’ve made soap for over 5 years now and something about milk soap is always amazing to me. It’s just creamier and softer. This is such a moisturizing and nourishing soap bar. By far one of my family’s favorites.

I sell it locally and in my online shop HERE. But I also wanted to share the recipe for my other soapmaking enthusiasts out there who wanted to try it!

Milk Soap Recipe

• 15.20 oz milk
• 6.56 oz lye
• 30 oz organic coconut oil
• 10 oz homemade lard
• 6 tbsp dried calendula flowers
• 5 tbsp dried lavender flowers
• 100 drops lavender essential oil
• 50 drops orange essential oil

First you need to weigh out the milk and freeze it in an ice cube tray. When I make non-milk soap I use water for this step. But when you replace with milk you have to make sure you use frozen milk. The lye heats up the liquid so much that it’ll scorch the milk. This doesn’t matter when its water, but it won’t turn out as good if its burned milk. So just measure out what you need beforehand and get it in the freezer.

Prep the oils

Next you’re going to measure out the coconut oil and lard and get them melting in the crockpot. I just put the crockpot on medium or low and let it slowly melt. Don’t let the oils get too hot though because I’ve had the whole soap mixture bubble over the edge of the crockpot because the lye over-activates in the hot oil. Just past melted is good, sometimes I’ll even leave tiny chunks left that aren’t melted.

Place all the milk ice cubes into a glass bowl or jar. Slowly pour the lye over it allowing some to melt before you add more. You may add a tiny splash of water at the very beginning to get it started.

Remember: you always pour the lye into the liquid, NEVER pour the liquid into the lye.

Slowly keep pouring the lye in and stirring until it’s all combined. Then let it sit and activate for awhile.

After the oil is melted and all the lye is dissolved into the milk you can move onto the next step.

Pour the lye mixture into the oils and use an immersion blender to start blending the soap. Keep blending until it comes to “trace”. I tell by picking up the immersion blender and touching it lightly on the surface of the soap, then lifting up to see if it leaves a raised trail. If it leaves a trail that remains on the surface of your batter then your soap has reached trace.

Let it cook

Set the crockpot to low and let it cook for 45 minutes.

Usually 45 minutes plus how long it takes me to add the other ingredients is plenty, but if you’re not sure you can do the “zap test”. Stick the edge of a spoon in the soap and pull it out, you only need tiny amount. Let it cool for a moment so it doesn’t burn you.

Then put your tongue on it.

No, I’m not kidding.

If it just tastes gross like soap then it’s done, but if it gives you kind of an electrical “zap”, then it’s not done and needs to cook longer.

Once you know it’s done cooking you can add the dried herbs and essential oils. Measure them all into the soap and mix really well to combine.

Now you can put the soap in molds.

I use these individual bar molds, but some people use a loaf mold and just cut it after it’s cooled and hardened.

Let them harden

Now here is where hot process soap comes in handy. These can be taken out of the mold only an hour or so later and used almost immediately. I like to let them sit outside of the mold for at least 24 hours before using because the more hardened they are the longer they’ll last.

Cold process soap doesn’t get cooked in the crockpot but you have to wait 6 weeks or so for the soap to cure or the lye will burn you.

So since I have a hard time planning ahead 6 weeks, hot process soap is definitely the method for me!

Now you’re done! I hope you enjoy these delicious smelling creamy milk soap bars as much as we do!

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