Soap Naturally Recipes
7th International Soap Swap
NAME's Soap Recipe

Lavender Goat's Milk by Jeanette Larson

Jeanette's Lavender Goat's Milk Soap Recipe

A soap that works: - I started making soap in the mid-1980's. We live in a very dry climate, humidity of 8% is pretty usual. My skin is very sensitive and I cannot use most soaps, lotions or deodorants. I learned to make goat's milk soap from a fellow goat raiser back then and over the years I have adapted the recipe and learned a bit more. The Soap Naturally list is a wonderful resource! Most of what I make is from intuition and experience. I've never run it through a lye calculator. But I love my soap and it works for me, so hopefully everyone else will enjoy, too:-)

Cold-processed
Made on a day when the weather was hot and dry. Used last year's lavender blossoms, this year's not ready yet.

Ingredients

6 lbs generic soy shortening
40 oz canola Oil
20 oz safflower oil
9 oz olive oil
2 oz grapeseed oil

6 lbs frozen goat's milk [we freeze it in 2 lb chunks in plastic freezer bags]
24 oz NaOH

Additive

1/2 cup lavender flowers

Scented with

50 drops lavender essential oil

Method

In the very biggest stainless steel pot, melt shortening and blend with oils on low heat, stir and temp frequently to keep below 120°F.

In a separate very big stainless steel pot (both need to be big enough to hold the entire batch), put in the slightly thawed, still very slushy goat's milk. Stirring constantly, pour the lye slowly (very slowly, take at least 10 minutes to do this step!) over the top of the goat's milk slush and blend it in. It will turn a creamy lemon yellow and should stay under 120°F.

When the oils are all blended and liquid in their pot and the lye and goat's milk are smoothly blended together, pour the milk mixture into the oils, stirring as you do so. From here on out, you need to stir constantly. It's nice to have a helper at this stage, or a mechanical mixer.

My set up for this next stage is a big, strong linoleum covered table. I put one of the pots on one side and the other on the other side and a heavy duty blender in between. Using a ladle, I scoop the soap mixture into the blender, filling it about 1/2 full. I run the blender for about a minute and pour the blended soap mixture into the second pot. You must keep stirring both pots. I repeat this, going back and forth through the blender from pot to pot. When the soap is starting to trace, I add the lavender flowers and e.o., dividing it out through about 3 blender loads. The soap usually goes through the blender twice before trace but occasionally traces after only one pass through the blender and often takes 3 passes.

At trace, pour the soap mixture into plastic molds, 15"x2-1/2"x3-1/2". This batch will fill 7 or 8 of these molds. Cover loosely with paper towels to keep dust and bugs out. Leave until firm. Put in freezer for 4-6 hours and then pop out of mold. You can cut it then, but I usually let it cure 6 weeks in the block and then cut it right before wrapping.

Wrap in paper or cloth so soap can continue to breathe. It is very high in oils, which will leach out if the soap is wrapped in plastic.

Jeanette

[ Laffing Horse Farm ]

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Contributor: Jeanette Larson

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