When you make soap from scratch, some ingredients are harder to work with than others. Milk (of any kind) can be one of those ingredients.
The benefits of having milk in your soap definitely outweigh the temperamental qualities it has, though….and here are just some:
- The PH level of (most) milk is really close to our skin’s natural PH levels, making milk soaps super gentle and nourishing
- Milk has naturally occurring lactic acid, which helps with gentle exfoliation of dead, dry skin cells
- The fats in milk (especially goats milk) are also luxuriously moisturizing for the skin
Of all the things that can happen when you use milk in your soap batter, overheating (because of the natural sugars) is probably the most common, and annoying.
When soap overheats….it ain’t pretty. It can crack the top of your soap (mildly annoying), or even sometimes completely erupt into what so many people in the soap making world call a “soap volcano”.
Even if you don’t have a volcano, scorched/burnt milk can happen if your soap overheats. The smell of scorched milk in your soap has been described as an ammonia-like smell, and your soap will get very dark in colour. It’s still useable, but not as pretty or nice smelling.
A lot of soapers will take steps to reduce the chance of this happening, by using milk that has been frozen into ice cubes, and adding their lye to that. I just added powdered goats milk to my soap batter after I already mixed the lye and water. (Using fresh milk is much harder-you need to be more careful)
Because I’m loving the movie-making app on my phone, I made another little video of the process. If you don’t already make soap, this won’t really teach you how to do it…..but will give you a behind-the-scenes look at how it was made.
Enjoy!
GLA:D 