Could you please share your goats milk recipe?

I'm looking for a relatively simple goat's milk recipe, and I couldn't really find any online that sang to me. Would you share one of your tried and true recipes with me and the reasons why you love it? Any responses before this weekend would be much appreciated!!

Found this one on Pinterest. Does this sound okay?

24 oz. Olive Oil (75%)
8 oz. Palm Kernel Oil (25%)
4.38 oz. Lye (6% superfat)
8.8 oz. goat milk

Because when I run the oils through soapcalc with a 6% superfat, I get this:

(same oils)
12.16 oz goat milk
4.381 oz lye

That first recipe is way too steep of a liquid discount (high lye concentration) to use with Goats Milk, especially if you are new to soap making. Your 2nd option that you ran thru SoapCalc is with full water/liquid...which normally with high Olive Oil recipes I would do a discount, but with all Goats Milk, I would use full liquid. That recipe isn't very balanced either, but that doesn't necessarily mean it won't make a decent soap. It would probably be very gentle, since the cleansing factor is almost non-existent. Have you thought about trying a basic Olive/Coconut/Palm (or oils of your choice) recipe and just substituting Goats Milk for your liquid?

I'm with alchemy and ashes....I use a basic Olive/Coconut/Palm recipe for my goats milk soaps, and they come out nicely. Just substitute the water content for the goats milk. I also freeze the goat milk in ice cube trays, and use the frozen milk. Pour the lye on to it bit by bit and stir stir stir...then a bit more. Eventually the frozen milk has dissolved and the lye has not turned the milk orange and nasty smelling.

Could you have a peek at this?
- 6% superfat (not sure if that's necessary - could I go down to 5%?)
- water discount at 38%
- will substitute the water with frozen goats milk.

Looks good to me! Keep the 6% Superfat (you probably wouldn't notice that 1% difference anyhoo).
Soap On, Soaper!

BOOM. -- There's Shawnee again. Thanks, babe!

That looks like a lot of olive to me at half the recipe but may be what you want. I just don't care for that much myself, too slick of a bar and with goats milk as all the liquid, too creamy and not hard enough through constant use ulness I'm the only person in the house using it twice a day on my face. It's kind of an expensive oil to experiment with too.

Oh ya? What would you tweak?

You could reduce your olive oil by 10% and make up the difference with more palm.

Personally, I like 50% OO soaps so I think your initial idea would work fine too.

I like the look of the recipe. The only difference I would make is to add some castor to it.

45% olive
25% coconut
25% palm
5% castor

or

40% olive
25% coconut
25% palm
10% castor

The 40% olive recipe is one I've used several times for body soap. I like adding castor for a little extra conditioning, to add a little more bubbles and to stabilize the lather.

Is a high olive oil soap gelled a lot harder than not gelled or something? :? I swear if I use too much liquid oils in a recipe with milk the soap is just too soft and don't want to expend my supply of olive oil on those kind of results. The bottom of the bar gets all mushy and I'm using online lye calculators. The texture of soap I like is Kirk's Castile which of course isn't really Castile at all but it definitely is hard, bubbly and rinses off well. Though it does get used up a little more quickly I noticed. I once bought a Castile (no milk in the brand it was) and had to throw it away as it didn't even keep its rectangle shape. I used Soapcalc today and found that with 66% palm and coconut and olive at 20% with almond at 10% and castor at 5% it seemed according to the figures a pretty well rounded soap that fell in the middle of the recommended numbers or close to. Hardness was 47 and the max looked to be 54.

Some online recipes have no liquid oil at all which I tried doing one bar with and so far it seems okay. Doesn't seem that different from other soaps I have except harder. I saw another recipe with so much canola oil I wondered if it was a misprint.

Maythorn said:

Is a high olive oil soap gelled a lot harder than not gelled or something? :? I swear if I use too much liquid oils in a recipe with milk the soap is just too soft and don't want to expend my supply of olive oil on those kind of results. The bottom of the bar gets all mushy and I'm using online lye calculators.

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My recipes vary anywhere from 35-50% Olive Oil and they are certainly hard enough. I gel all my soaps...I hate partial gel, and well, in Florida with the heat, I never have a problem getting my soaps to gel. 8)
High Olive Oil soaps do benefit from a longer cure and a steeper water discount/stronger lye concentration.
To help my lather I do add 5-6% Castor to my recipes, and only some do I find have a "slimier" texture like Castille. This also gets better after a longer cure.
My husband used to go through 1+ bars of commercial soap (good Ol' Irish Spring) a week. My 5 oz bars last him over a month.
If the bottom of your soap is "getting all mushy", it probably isn't in a well draining dish.

Maythorn said:

That looks like a lot of olive to me at half the recipe but may be what you want. I just don't care for that much myself, too slick of a bar and with goats milk as all the liquid, too creamy and not hard enough through constant use ulness I'm the only person in the house using it twice a day on my face. It's kind of an expensive oil to experiment with too.

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Are you referring to the Olive Oil being expensive? I don't find this to be true, unless you're using organic or EVOO.

The reason Kirk's Castile soaps are so hard is because it is a Coconut Oil base (with a little added glycerin). Coconut Oil makes an incredibly hard bar, but really drying to the skin. Kirk's is used as a laundry soap because of this. One of the first soaps I made was a "rebatch" with grated Kirk's and added Cocoa Butter & Almond Oil. The extras helped, but I wouldn't have sold it :wink:

Thanks for your help, Alchemy Ashes. Kirk's is drying and not the ideal for many peoples' skin just firm. The men in my family seem to think its tops, doesn't conflict with cologne or after shave and would be hard to improve upon. I better try gelling I think but it's very cold here and that might preclude applying strong heat to certain molds unless they are meant for it. Wood I'm sure is okay on low.

Its not the end of story when you pour an ungell and then you can be on your merry way. You have to check on it to make sure it's staying cool and not getting hot in the middle so a person might as well go ahead with the step of gelling which I believe takes just about as long. I've had ones that seemed fine and then a half hour later or longer had to go in the freezer for a little while because they slowly but surely were getting too warm.

I also got to thinking tonight, dangerous I know, and decided, doh, I really have to turn the bars often during cure. A few days one way and then next week the other way. No wonder the bottoms were mushy of ones that sat a long time with the pretty side up.

When using GM, do you gel or not gel?

Maythorn said:

Kirk's is drying and not the ideal for many peoples' skin just firm. The men in my family seem to think its tops, doesn't conflict with cologne or after shave and would be hard to improve upon.

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What is it with men and drying soaps? They love that "squeaky clean" feeling when they're skin is stripped of all oils. I notice if I superfat over 5% they don't like it. Meanwhile, most women I know like a higher superfat. Is this the same conclusion others have come to?

Maythorn said:

I better try gelling I think but it's very cold here and that might preclude applying strong heat to certain molds unless they are meant for it. Wood I'm sure is okay on low..

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Have you tried an electric heating pad on low under your mold? Any mold that can hold up to saponification should be able to handle that heat. You could also CPOP. I have gelled and ungelled a few of my recipes...and I hated waiting to unmold the ungelled! I also didn't like waiting for them to cure (high Olive Oil content) because they were so soft for so long...I made soap balls with them eventually since i couldn't keep myself from poking at them and leaving prints :twisted: Their lather wasn't as nice either, while the gelled version is great. I keep an eye while my soaps are gelling to make sure they don't overheat...I hate that as much as a partial gel :x I guess it's just preference when it all comes down to it :wink:

P.S. I assumed you meant your soap was "mushy" on one side in the shower...I don't know why it didn't dawn on me that you meant while curing :crazy:

Happy Soaping! :wave:

Wandawump said:

When using GM, do you gel or not gel?

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From what I've heard, it's a personal preference. Not gelling adds to the cure time. I'm definitely going to do my best to prevent gel at all cost. Gonna be tough, because I'm using wooden molds. We'll see, my friends, we'll see.

Regarding the recipe, I'm almost out of palm -- I hope I can still scrape out 16oz for my 6lb recipe. So increasing the palm is unfortunately not an option this time, but I'll keep it in mind.

Thanks Shawnee! Gelling is on the schedule for next batch. I have a heating pad, too.

Question, if this technique is new to you, why are you making such a large batch? Why not start out with a 1.5-2 lb batch to see how it goes.

Also, the larger the batch size (assuming it's all in one mold), the greater the thermal mass and the more likely it is to gel.

Why am I making such a large batch? Because I'm fearless, lol. In any even, I made a 6lb batch in the new molds yesterday, and I'll post about it tomorrow when I've uploaded the pictures. I got some good and some odd results to share with you.