4-H
Transcript: The History of Goat Soap By: Raime Norton, Sarah Hendzel, and Amanda Holtham Most people do not understand or are unaware of goat milk soap and its benefits. Day after day many people continue to use the same commercial soaps that are too harsh for their skin. They do not realize that there is a handcrafted natural soap alternative that could be much better for their skin. Commercial soaps can leave a soapy build-up around the tub or shower. They can leave a mushy mess for you to clean. This is not the case with goat milk soaps. This soap lasts much longer than regular commercial soaps, using a well-drained soap dish. -Rubber gloves and goggles -Vinegar (for neutralizing lye mixture if you should splash some on skin) -Paper towels/waxed paper -Long pants, long shirt sleeves, closed toe shoes. A stainless steel whisk, heat tolerant rubber spatula, heat tolerant long handled spoon, and although optional…a stick blender is absolutely wonderful to bring soap to trace faster and can be bought for around $10-saves your arms and wrists! How I make Goats Milk Soap 1. First and foremost-You figure out what kind of oils and butters you want to include in my recipe. You should always use a Lye Calculator (several good ones on the internet) to make sure your combination of oils and lye and goats milk will saponify and provide a nice moisturizing product. Each oil has a slightly different property so please research on your oils before deciding what you want to do. You set the calculator at 6 percent superfat, and 35-40 percent liquid (all of my liquid being goats milk). 2.You use the 18 oz Red Devil Lye. (Side note:A lot of hardware or building stores sell Lye from companies called Roebic or Rooto..just MAKE SURE the bottle says 100 percent Lye on it! You don't want drain cleaner that has metal pieces in it! 3. Knowing how much milk you'll need, by weight, I put that much milk into a doubled gallon sized Ziploc freezer bag (the kind that zips all the way across-don’t use the tabbed kind) and freeze the milk laying flat like a pancake. Yes, this takes some planning ahead. You use anywhere from 65-72 oz of goats milk for one batch. 4.Okay, once you have all your needed resources and recipe, you are ready to make soap, right? Well, first find the right time to make your soap, when you don’t have lots of kids and animals running in and out of the room or getting under foot. You make sure the whole family knows when you'll be adding the lye and doing the mixing/bringing to trace and they all stay out of the kitchen. you need to weigh all your oils and add them together first…which is a safe activity for the family to still be coming in and getting into the fridge, but from when you get out the lye bottle to when your done pouring the “traced” soap, the kitchen is off limits! 5. Okay, maybe you need help with your recipe, ok so lets talk. Well, our advice to is to have 3 basic ingredients in your soap recipe and these can all be found at your local grocery store: Coconut oil, Olive Oil, and lard (or substitute plain Crisco) in addition to the goats milk and lye. We always add even more oils, but you don’t have to when making your first batch. We do suggest you try some kind of fragrance oil or essential oil to make your soap that much more enjoyable for your family or customers. The Lye Calculator will show you the percentage of your oils and try not to add more than 30 percent of the coconut oil….olive oil is wonderful and you can use closer to 40 percent or even 50 percent of that. 6. Fragrance-there are a lot of places to order your fragrance oils or essential oils from on line-just do a Google search. We hadn’t discovered that yet when we made my very first batch so went down to my local Hobby Lobby craft store and bought some there to try. I honestly feel that the ones you buy online are not only less expensive, even after figuring out the shipping, but of higher quality. So this would be another “plan ahead” item of note. 7. Okay, are we ready to try making soap? We think so. You do a quick check to make sure you have my molds ready, all your oils at hand, my scale, my pots clean and dry, my recipe, and all my needed utensils to include our beloved stick blender—oh yes, and our safety stuff like my goggles, gloves, and vinegar. We cover the countertops where you'll be working with paper towels and a couple pieces of waxed paper where you know it might get messy. We make sure both sides of the sink are empty. We will have our two stainless steel pots sitting in each side when we get ready to add them together (the oils and lye/milk mixtures). 8. We do mourweighing of the “solid at room temp” oils (for instance the coconut and lard) first and put them in the biggest stainless steel pot to melt them-usually over medium heat-but always keep a close eye on the pot. We then start weighing my liquid oils (for instance the olive oil, safflower oil, almond oil, etc) and adding them too. Once all your solid oils have become