Goats milk soap fail

Hi everyone! I have been making soap for 5 years now but not very often, I have made maybe 30-40 batches for friends and family, so still a beginner.

I tried goats milk soap a few times by adding the slushy frozen milk to my lye solution and it turned out well, though a little more scorched than I would have liked. So I decided to try the powdered goats milk method.

I should have read through a few recipes/tutorials first (smh) I know, but I thought I will just add the powdered goats milk to the cooled lye solution, since powdered milk + water = goats milk. It seemed fine, reached a nice trace but after an hour I went to check it and it's completely liquid - like stirring olive oil.

I have never seen this before. I sat down and read through a few recipes and it seems with powdered goats milk people like to add it to the finished, cooked batter. But from a chemical standpoint I don't know why adding it to the lye solution would do this.

I used 80% OO, 10 %CO, 10% grapeseed and 5% tallow, ran it all through Soap calc, with no other ingredients. My crockpot is definitely on, I used distilled water, and measured carefully by the gram. Anyone ever seen this? I would appreciate any insight.

Thanks everyone!

I make a lot of milk soaps. Here's what I and many do. We use the split method. I mix my lye with just enough water to dissolve the lye. 1:1 or a bit more. Then add the liquid difference in milk with some powdered added to make it full milk. This I add to my oils and stick blend well. Then I add my cooled lye mixture. So if your recipe calls for say 418 grams of water and 225 grams of lye, I'll mix my lye with 230 grams of water. Then use the rest as milk.

Just to clarify (because you made mention of your crockpot being on) are you doing HP or CP?


IrishLass

I use milk like shunt does, its the easiest way for me to avoid scorched milk. I've had traced soap separate back into a thin liquid when doing HP. I just kept using the stick blender until it stayed together then proceeded to HP like normal.

Need some more details cause I'm a little confused? Your soap batter (lye solution + oils) ended up as thin as olive oil? Did you blend it to emulsion or trace? Is it in the mold or in the crockpot, and has it cooked long?

Hi Lenarenee, yes I did blend it - pretty long, it had a good trace. I'm confused too - how can soap batter with the viscosity of pudding become liquid? I would not say as thin as olive oil, a little thicker but very clear.

Irishlass and Obsidian I was doing HP - after I posted yesterday I went back and mixed it some more with my stick blender, and cooked it an extra hour. I have been doing non-milk soaps about an hour and 15 minutes on low, so this would be around 2.5 hours. It did get to finally thicken/get the mashed potato look around the edges, but still liquid in the middle. Since you have seen it Obsidian I will conclude maybe that adding the powdered milk to the solution instead of the oils didn't cause a weird chemical reaction that inhibited saponification.

Thank you Shunt - I will do the split method next time!