We made three more soaps over a month ago. I’ve been wanting to post about them, but just haven’t had the time.
The first is Lily of the Valley Olive Oil Soap.
This recipe is the same of the Calendula Olive Oil soap except I left out the calendula and added lily of the valley fragrance oil. We also substituted goats milk for the water. I had so much trouble with getting that soap out of the mold, but learned a couple of tricks from some of my online soap groups. For this batch I sprayed the molds with olive oil and waited a week to unmold it, instead of 24 hours. It was still soft and maybe next time we’ll wait two weeks, but they turned out beautiful. Supposedly you should let it cure for a year. It can be used now, but it is still soft and won’t last as long.
This soap is a winner. It’s just the olive, palm, and coconut oils with some lanolin. For the water we used green mint tea which gave it a bit of a tan color and added pumice, spearmint essential oil, and castor oil at trace. A great hand soap.
The last one is Chocolate Goats Milk Soap.
This soap really smells chocolately!
Chocolate Goats Milk Soap [print_link]
35% olive oil
30% coconut oil
20% palm oil
10% cocoa butter
5% avocado butter
Goats Milk – 12 ounces or 342 grams
Lye – 4.5 ounces or 127 grams
Chocolate Mousse fragrance oil – 2 tablespoons (added at trace)
2 ounces wheat germ oil (added at trace)
Follow the procedures for cold process soap. Also, be sure and check all recipes you find either here or anywhere on the web using a soap calculator.
Here they are all dressed and ready to be given away.
It has been so much fun making soap this year. It’s also something we enjoy doing together. And there is more soap to be made in 2011!
These are wonderful Lynda!! I love the spearmint and the chocolate soap, they must smell heavenly 🙂
When you substitute the milk for water, do you add any “milk fat” to the calculation or is it a straight substitution and you don’t account for any additional “fats?” I’ve seen several people say they just sub in the milk–and I am assuming they do not then use “milk fat” in the fat part of the calculation. I used to substitute milk for water in melt and pour, but that’s a bit different. I’m thinking of making an olive oil soap and using milk instead of water (I hear the milk helps it set up to be a harder soap.)
Thanks!
Maria (BearMountainBooks) recently posted..Dragons Need Help!
Hi Maria, No we don’t take in account the milk fat. We love our goats milk soap – and I don’t see any more hardness – they are just so bubbly. We’re now on this coconut milk adventure. We’ll be cutting two of our new coconut milk soap today. Hubby tells about our coconut adventure here – http://www.ourhappyacres.com/2013/03/more-soaping-adventures-and-lessons-learned/ Thanks for dropping by.
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Thanks for the quick reply! That is great to know. I will have to try it. I have also heard the addition of salt helps it harden faster, although really I don’t have a problem with it (other than waiting the long wait!) I use some coconut oil in the recipe and sometimes cocoa butter and that seems to help. The cocoa butter definitely made a harder bar than the one without.
Thanks again!
Maria (BearMountainBooks) recently posted..Dragons Need Help!
I have a question: I can’t find a soap recipe all the oils I want. Could I exchange the amount of oils equally? Meaning, in this recipe, there is 20% palm, 10% cocoa butter, and 5% avocado butter. So could I simply change it to 20% cocoa butter and 15% avocado while keeping all re remaining ingredients the same amount?
Thanks!
Antonette, You can substitute oils but once you do you need to run the whole recipe through the soap calculator (http://www.soapcalc.net/calc/SoapCalcWP.asp) since oils have different sap values.
When making the chocolate goats milk soap how have you got it to look like the chocolate is layered around the soap?
Thanks
Hi Fiona, That soap was cut before it was totally cured. Once it cured, the inside ended up the same color as the outside. We are now working on two-toned soaps and we’ll be posting soon. Thanks for dropping by.
I love homemade soaps & body scrubs.
Denise, I do too. It’s been a long time since I’ve used store bought soaps or scrubs.