A hand mixer, like the first one, isn’t going to speed up soap trace like an immersion blender. With the immersion blender it should take no more than 10 minutes (maybe on the rare occasion 12 minutes) to reach trace, but a hand mixer on a high olive oil soap like this one is going to be s-l-o-w like stirring by hand. (Which would take hours.) And I just guessed on 5 lb batch since those are more common than my 2 1/2 lb batches but you could half the amount, if needed. You could also search ‘how much oatmeal to add to cold process soap’ or something like that.)

Aqua/Water/Eau, Sodium C14-16 Olefin Sulfonate, Cocamidopropyl Betaine, Sodium Chloride, Glycol Distearate, Cocos Nucifera (Coconut/Noix De Coco) Oil, Hydrolyzed Milk Protein, Albumen, Cocos Nucifera (Coconut/Noix De Coco) Fruit Extract, Sodium Hydrolyzed Potato Starch Dodecenylsuccinate, Polyquaternium-22, Linoleamidopropyl PG-Dimonium Chloride Phosphate, PEG-7 Amodimethicone, Polyquaternium-39, Laureth-4, PEG-150 Pentaerythrityl Tetrastearate, PPG-2 Hydroxyethyl Cocamide, Acrylates/C10-30 Alkyl Acrylate Crosspolymer, Propylene Glycol, Sodium Citrate, Hexylene Glycol, Citric Acid, Sodium Hydroxide, Sodium Benzoate, Formic Acid, Leuconostoc/Radish Root Ferment Filtrate, Tocopheryl Acetate, Sodium Bicarbonate, Glycerin, Coconut Acid, Disodium Tetrapropenyl Succinate, Parfum/Fragrance.Since this is a milk-based recipe, you can infuse your milk with rose petals before using, if you’d like. Silicone Column Mold (from BrambleBerry) – when using silicone, decrease the amount of liquid to 8 ounces and allow to stay in the mold a few extra days. You can also add 1 1/2 teaspoons sodium lactate (a natural salt solution from corn or beets) to the lye solution after the lye is completely dissolved, to make the soap batter firm up faster in the mold. There are two types of lye: sodium hydroxide (for solid bars of soap) and potassium hydroxide (for liquid soaps.) I buy and recommend Essential Depot’s food grade lye from Am a zon. You could also try making your soap at higher temperatures than I do. Warm your oils up to a higher temperature (about 100 to 110 degrees F perhaps) and maybe start with your milk slushy instead of frozen solid. The cold is intended to keep the milk from scorching and turning brown, but it’s better to have a slightly tan bar than one that won’t trace nicely for you.

Add the lye slowly, stirring constantly. It will take several minutes to do this – don’t rush this part. Make sure every bit of lye is dissolved. The milk might turn a bright yellow and smell a little weird. That’s okay and perfectly normal. Lye is a requirement when making homemade soap. It seems scary and dangerous, but I assure you – if you can safely and responsibly work with strong chemicals such as bleach and ammonia, then you can handle lye. ( Read more about that why you need lye to make soap HERE.) I use whole milk – sometimes raw and sometimes pasteurized, since that’s what we drink, but you can use lower fat versions as well. When using milk substitutes, the less additives, the better. Milk Soap Video: Another alternative is to reconstitute the powdered milk so it’s a liquid milk, freeze it and proceed with the recipe as normal, using the frozen milk to make your lye solution. We get this one a lot. It may seem odd since shampoos usually seem geared to a specific hair concern like dry, oily, coloured, damaged (need we go on?) etc. But in our opinion, we don’t think it’s needed if you make a good shampoo, and hair just needs to be washed. And if you look closely you might notice that there isn’t much difference in the ingredient listings anyway. It’s kind of like pet food made specifically for indoor pets and outdoor pets (which is actually a thing) – not sure what difference this would make.

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Palm free soap recipes that are higher in olive oil, like this one, can take a little longer to set up and cure. Olive oil is a soft/hard oil. It starts off causing the soap to be on the softer side, but once it cures for an extended time, the bar will grow very hard, yet extremely gentle on your skin. You can reduce the amount of milk by an ounce or two, if you’d like to speed up the process. Reducing liquid is also helpful when using silicone molds. Directions to Make Milk Soap My soap had cocoa butter and I used cream in it, but you could really add vanilla bean to any soap recipe, even the one in this post for milk soap. Now though there are so many great resources out there and so many wonderful soap makers sharing their hard earned knowledge online. This program is free to join and easy to use. Ready to give it a 'GOO and make an impact? That's MOO-sic to our ears. How does it work? So glad you asked. In 4 simple steps you can make help us make a MOO-ve to less in landfill. Sign up today! Bar Silicone Mold (also from BrambleBerry) – the recipe will fill about nine of the cavities. Same suggestions for silicone molds above, applies to this mold as well.

Vanilla extract won’t work in soap making. It’s alcohol based (which isn’t usually recommended unless you’re doing advanced transparent soap recipes) and the scent burns completely off in the soap making process. It’s hard to get a vanilla scent in soap unless you use vanilla absolute (somewhat cost prohibitive) or vanilla fragrance oil. If you use anything with vanilla in it, be aware that it turns soap various shades of tan to dark brown and plan accordingly for that. Compared to common inexpensive store-bought soaps, soap making isn’t more cost effective. If you compare to ready-made organic or other handmade soaps, then the playing field evens out. It’s also nice to know exactly what’s in your bar of soap – no mystery ingredients! But, overall, I don’t consider soap making a frugal hobby or past-time. There’s some investment up-front in getting the equipment and ingredients. I liken it to raising our own food though. It’s not really more cost effective for us to do so, but it’s leaps ahead in quality of anything we can buy in the store and we can be 100% sure of what we’re exposing our family to.You can use rose petals in most any soap recipe, when incorporated as an infused oil or infused liquid (tea). They won’t add scent or color to your soap, but some people feel the benefits remain in the soap. (I’m in the camp that believes they do too.) Wooden Mold – I use one homemade by my husband. Its inner dimensions are 8″ x 3.5″ x 3.5″. Wooden molds should always be lined with parchment or freezer paper. The natural Milk Shampoo is suitable for all hair types. However, those with sensitivities and dryness will get along extra well with it. As it is made with a combination of coconut and glucose-based cleansers, free from harsh synthetic detergents (SLS) that can dry out the hair. It also has Milk Protein in it to help protect hair fibres and revitalizes its natural protective layer.

When we first started making products, we used a blend of essentials oils to give them a lovely fragrance. But many people have severe reactions and allergies to them, even in small amounts. As a result, and because we make products for people with sensitive skin, we took them out of most products. Instead, we helped to develop a special kind of fragrant oil, whereby each component in it is less than the EU allergy threshold. This is how we can have a pleasant-smelling product without the reactions. The scents we use are proprietary blends from the company we get them from, and we’ve had no reactions since we made the switch. Also, of course, it is free from phthalates, which is the main concern in fragrances.Because we make our products for our families, we have a strict ingredient philosophy that excludes ingredients like Parabens, Phenoxyethanol and penetration enhancers.