another milk question

[Jessrof]

I have successfully made milk soap in the past, but the last few times have been iffy.

I attempted to make coconut milk soap last night but it did some weird things. I added the lye very slowly (over hrs) to the milk. It began to get chunkyand thick and had the ammonia smell I have heard others talk about. Also when I mixed the lye solution with my oils, it became gritty and had almost flake like things in it. Any thoughts?

Is the ammonia smell bad? Does that mean this batch is a lost cause?

 

[Candybee]

I add fresh coconut milk to many of my soaps but add it in at light trace. Its just easier and the milk doesn't change color or chunk up and it makes a nice white soap too.

If you must use it as you lye liquid then I suggest you freeze your milk. Then break it up into chunks in your lye bowl and slowly add the lye to the frozen milk chunks. I also place the bowl inside another bowl full of ice. This helps keep the bowl chilled. Lots of soapers strain their milk/lye mixture before adding to their oils.

Also, the smell will go away after a couple of days. Goats milk soap also smells pretty rank for a day or two but the smell always goes away. Kinda smells like amonia.


HTH

 

[Jessrof]

I did freeze the coconut milk... I made gm soap without any smell... Here is hoping it smooths out

 

[new12soap]

IME coconut milk will start to saponify almost immediately, that is why it was chunky, it was already becoming soap. It mixed perfectly into my oils tho and made lovely soap. I don't know about gritty and flakes. The ammonia smell will go away pretty quickly, tho so you should be fine there.

 

[OHello]

I did the frozen method with my coconut milk soap too and it started to saponify before I added it to the oils. It all just blended in without a problem.

I didn't get a nasty smell or anything though, at first it smelled faintly of coconut, but now that it has been curing for a few weeks it has disappeared.

 

[melstan775]

Did you say very slowly over hours? It shouldn't be that long. It should be a few minutes, but certainly not hours. Not even half an hour. I do 1/2 milk at trace and it works fine for me, maybe try this next time?

 

[Ruthie]

Sounds like what I did the first time I used frozen milk. But it does not need to take that long. Just thoroughly stir in a tablespoon of lye at a time and it will be fine. I now do this regularly and never have a problem (so far!)

 

[WallFlower]

Mine does that too. I just stick blend the milk/lye before adding it to the oils.