help with this soap recipe!

I am new to making soap and have never made it before. NOTE: the instructions for the brown sugar oat soap says to use hot process soap method.

If soap making terminologies are used, please explain what they are, because as stated above I have never made soap before so am not familiar with these terminologies.

I found a recipe (listed below) that is the closest to what I could find. However, I would like to use milk in place of the water; how would this effect the procedure of making the soap?

I'd also like to add a small amount of shea butter; how much would I add (recipe yields 2 lbs.) Please specify in weight not percentage; soap making recipes that list ingredients as percentages confuse me.

I found a different recipe which is perfect. (link listed below) However it says to use a 1200 gram mold; what is this in pounds/ounces; I use customary measurements, not metric that is why I ask.

https://zendesigns.co.nz/oatmeal-milk-honey-soap-recipe/

Crisco — 9.6 ounces or 272.155 grams
olive oil — 9.6 ounces or 272.155 grams
lard — 6.4 ounces or 181.437 grams
coconut oil (76-degree melt point) — 6.4 ounces or 181.437 grams
distilled water — 12.16 ounces or 344.73 grams
lye — 4.463 ounces or 126.524 grams
1/3 cup ground oatmeal
1 ounce fragrance oil
1/2 cup brown sugar

1200 grams=

2.636 pounds
42.32875 Ounces
I am very new to soap making. If you add any other
Oils my understanding is that you should run the
Recipe through a lye calculator. And I have never heard of lye being
Disolved in anything but water and I did read about coffee being used
One time

Well first of all this is a terrible recipe. Half a cup of brown sugar? That is ridiculous. 1/3 cup of ground oat meal is also too much - it will make your soap feel like sandpaper.

Second, Crisco (at least the new recipe) is mostly cottonseed oil. That is terrible for soap, and can cause rancidity to set in quickly.

Third, it is too big of a batch for a first time. You really need to only make 1 pound (around 500g) for your first time.

A good recipe to start with is this:

60% Lard
20% Olive Oil
15% Coconut Oil
5% Castor Oil

Yes it is in percents. You need to learn how to use a soap calculator to get your lye and water amounts - as well as how to resize your batches. Look at Soapee.com (the one I like) or soapcalc.net.

As a new soaper myself, I certainly understand wanting to aim for the sky when it comes to making incredible soaps. I recommend, however, perhaps starting with a very simple and basic recipe - one with no additives or fragrances. My limited understanding is that sugars can cause unexpected heating or bubbling, and I don't really know about oatmeal.

Hot process means you're doing it in something like a crackpot - one that isn't aluminum and that you're willing to sacrifice to the soap gods (i.e. won't be used for food again).

It has been recommended to generally soap in 1lb/500 grams if you're testing a new batch, and the advice I've received on grams vs ounces is due to the chemistry in soaping - there is a bigger difference between 1 and 2 ounces than 1 and 2 grams. Of course this requires having a kitchen scale that measures in grams and apparently (ideally) tenths of a gram - so you can measure 87.9 grams of lye instead of rounding up to 88 grams.

Anyway... All that being said.. You CAN soap with milk. I don't know how to do it hot process, but in cold process you measure the weight of the milk, pour it into an ice cube tray, and then freeze it. Then you add the lye to the milk ice cubes while stirring, to keep it from scorching and discoloring.

There is a post in the beginning soaping forum about using a lye calculator like soapee.com for any recipe you want to try. It's good to double check recipes just to make sure that it's not going to explode all over the kitchen.

This might be a recipe to make first without any of the additives, and then adding the complexity once you get the hang of soapmaking!

I don't think that's a very good first recipe, to be honest. The base oil profile isn't too bad, but it has some problems. It's too big for a first recipe, and that is A LOT of sugar - if you use milk it would be even more sugar. It would also require a few techniques that you aren't going to have yet on your first try. Even with a hot process, there is a not-insignificant chance of you ending up with a burned mess or a boil-over.

You're clearly quite new, and that's great, but the frank truth is that you need to learn a bit more before trying something like this (if ever, again it's kind of a wonky recipe). Folks usually recommend that people read all the threads in the first 3 or 4 pages of the Beginner's section here as a starting point, but you might have to go back further if you're set on the hot process method, because it's not very popular here. Youtube videos will also help.

After that, I'd really recommend that you try a more straightforward recipe first. Something with just lard, olive oil, coconut oil, water and lye to start.

Something like this:
Lard 300g
Olive Oil 180g
Coconut oil 120g
Water 228g
lye 85g

I know you said you don't want to work in grams, but it's much more accurate and any digital scale you're likely to find should be able to measure in grams easily. Don't try to make soap without a digital scale.

A few people have posted while I was typing my response, and while we're pretty much all saying the same things I realize it might sound discouraging. Don't be discouraged! You've found the right place, and you found it early; that's half the battle.

A little bit of studying and some help from here will have you making soap in no time. Everyone here will help you all you need. Don't hesitate to ask.

I'm going to strongly recommend that you use a soap calculator for yourself. It's essential and it will help you figure out the sizing for recipes you want to try.

Also, you really do not need to make more than a lb of soap if this is going to be your first batch. Putting this into perspective, the less resources you use, the less of the potential you have to complain about having too much a bad batch, if you don't like it.

Lastly, using milk is easy but I would suggest you run the recipe through first without it. This way, you can feel your way around soapmaking without the extra stress.

Follow the advice the others gave, and you'll be able to make milk soap in due time.