Soap Makers Help!

[Backyard Buddies]

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ha ha. Welcome to the addiction.

 

[Backyard Buddies]

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I can only give my opinion.

Many folks think they have to prevent gel on milk soaps so it won't darken. Others are concerned about their EO/FO burning off with gelled soaps. Still others like the appearance of an ungelled soap vs a gelled soap

I'm a geller - I also only make milk soaps.

All my soaps are light in color.

OK, so what is the trick to keeping a milk based soap light in color? My first milk batch was all milk and ended up caramel colored. My second milk batch was 1/3 milk and 2/3 water - adding the lye to the water, letting it cool, then adding the milk right before adding the oils. It came out lighter, but still darker than my other soaps. Both times I used slushy milk.

I have some milk in my freezer, frozen rock solid at this point, and would love to try again with another batch.

 

[chiknwhisperer]

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My best guess is that it could be either the chocolate or the soy. Both are known allergens. As a kid, I had some sensitivities. Irish Spring made me break out badly and I would break out in a big rash behind my knees if I ate too much chocolate. I don't seem to have that problem any more now that I'm older.

If she's interested in your soaps, you could probably make her a small batch of a pure Olive Oil Castile soap with no scents or additives. I would think she'd do great with that.

I did suggest that I could do that if she wanted me to but I haven't heard back from her yet. I may just go ahead and make that anyway so that other people could buy it as well since its so good for your skin. I suggested she use the buttermilk soap that I have her and hopefully that one be better.

 

[MullersLaneFarm]

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Weigh all your oils. I weigh my solid oils together and start melting them slowly, then weigh my liquid oils. When solid oils are almost completely melted, remove from heat and add to liquid oils.

Take your frozen milk, chunked into approx 1" pieces and weigh it. Place container of weighed frozen milk chunks in cold water bath.

Weigh your lye.

Add aboutg 1/3 of your lye to your milk cubes. Stir to get them starting to melt. Add about half the remaining lye. stir well once again. Add remaining lye and stir again. At this time I use my stick blender to to break up remaining milk cubes and ensure lye is well incorporated.

Add immediately to waiting oils. Soap as normal.

I have pictures of my method.

 

[ninjapoodles]

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Weigh all your oils. I weigh my solid oils together and start melting them slowly, then weigh my liquid oils. When solid oils are almost completely melted, remove from heat and add to liquid oils.

Take your frozen milk, chunked into approx 1" pieces and weigh it. Place container of weighed frozen milk chunks in cold water bath.

Weigh your lye.

Add aboutg 1/3 of your lye to your milk cubes. Stir to get them starting to melt. Add about half the remaining lye. stir well once again. Add remaining lye and stir again. At this time I use my stick blender to to break up remaining milk cubes and ensure lye is well incorporated.

Add immediately to waiting oils. Soap as normal.

I have pictures of my method.

This is the method I use, and quite honestly, I think I may have originally learned it from Cyndi, from her website (would this have been around 5 or so years ago?). I've never taken the stick blender to the milk/lye mixture, but I can see how that would work.

Still, I can't seem to keep milk soap from gelling. I can keep it from overheating, but even that takes effort in this climate, for some reason.

 

[smom1976]

ok so my milk gelled......do I throw it away???? but I still have my milk part lye mixture.

it freaked me out so I started over.. and used less coconut milk.. only one can and used the equivelent of two cans water vs.. three cans milk..

 

[Backyard Buddies]

Thanks MullersLaneFarm! So the key is FROZEN, not just *slushy* milk. I have some milk already frozen in my freezer, so I'll give it a try again with your directions. I'm determined.

Hi Ninja! Been thinking about you lately.

I need to PM you about all the many things we chatted about back before life became crazy. Hope all is well with you!

To both you and Smom , if I'm understanding MullersLaneFarm correctly, gelling is fine in her opinion. She posted a few pages back that she was hoping that the non-gellers would share their opinion. The bigger issue is the initial combining of the lye and milk that makes the difference. Did I understand that correctly, MLF?

 

[MullersLaneFarm]

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Perfectly!

The key to getting a light colored milk soap isn't in the gel/non-gel, but keeping your milk/lye solution as cold as possible so the milk sugars don't burn before adding the solution to your oils.

I know some milk soapers add their lye s-l-o-w-l-y to their milk, but there isn't really any need to. This just gives the lye more time to react with the milk and burn it. I know some milk soapers will dump all their lye into their frozen milk and get wonderful results.

Smom - I understand that your lye started sapoinifying the fats in the coconut milk before you added it to the oils, is that right??

No, don't toss it. It's a guess and by golly which of the fats the lye is going to react with in the soap pot. The worse thing that has happened to your soap is you have soap that is superfatted more than you intended. Not a bad thing.

To visually understand saponifying and superfatting - take a look at this page:

http://www.canis-art.com/soaping.htm

I just love it!!! (specially since I'm a spinner and love sheep and have a border collie!!)

 

[MissPrissy]

It depends on my mood and I know some people prefer light colored soaps but sometimes I play with the milk temps and I have gotten some very gorgeous burgundy colors that I wish I could duplicate again.

 

[Backyard Buddies]

Thanks for clarifying MLF! I can't wait to try the milk again. Depending on everything else I need to do today, I might make a batch of soap today.

Welcome back MP! You've been missed on this thread.

Oh, Target has silicone heart shaped molds in the dollar section right now - through they're $2.50. There are smaller embed sized ones - 2-14 packs and bigger guest sized ones. Think they'd work?