Goat milk LS - colour change

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Marit

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I'm new to the soap making world, but lately I have been tryig to make liquid soap using goat's milk. The first two batches turned out a beautiful golden colour, but the last 5-6 attempts have ended up brown (ranging from amber to guinness coloured). The soap still smells and feels the same, but I loved that golden colour!
I use olive oil, sunflower oil, canola oil, coconut oil and castor oil. Dissolve the KOH in semi-frozen goat milk. Mix the oils and the lye when both are 30 degrees celsius. Use a stick blender until I get a trace (quite thick), cook the paste using a double boiler for 6 hours (have tried both a very fast boil and just simmering, but it made no difference to the end result). The paste at this point is still golden in colour. I then dissolve the paste in sterile water. I tried both hot and cold water and hot paste or cooled paste, but again no difference.
Does anyone have any ideas what might cause the change in colour?
 
My guess is the brown color is caused by heating the sugars in the milk. CP milk soap will turn brown if allowed to gel, in cooking the paste you are bringing it to the gel stage.
 
Hi I'm quite new to soapmaking too. I've made a coconut milk soap and a yoghurt soap. Both were made using CP, and as soon as it was in the mould it had to go into the freezer for 30 mins then into the fridge overnight. Any articles I've read on milk soaps stress the need to keep the temp low, or the sugars will heat up and discolour the milk. Good luck :))


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I would venture to guess that it's a change in the milk composition. Is the milk from your goats or is it bought? Goat milk (and other species) can change throughout the year based on stage of lactation, diet, etc. Milk between breeds of goat is much different also, so I would guess that might be the simple answer.
Have you changed milk supplier? Changed any other ingredients?
 
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