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Rachel Kirk
865-560-6122
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Soap Sales

I have made and sold soap for many years and have decided to take 2009 off from it and focus on other projects. I have sold all of my remaining inventory.

 Making Goat Milk Soap

I have been making goat milk soaps on and off for about 8 years, each bar containing approximately 25% goat milk by weight. It helps pay for the hay and support our goat habit, plus the other animals that live here; and it gives me a creative outlet.

The main oils I use to make soaps include: Olive, Coconut, Palm and/or Palm Kernel, Apricot Kernel, Sweet Almond, and Avocado. To scent the soaps, I use fragrance oils and/or essential oils.

I have always made goat milk soaps as it all started with our first goats. I love using milk soaps and have decided to put my recipe and method online to help others. If you intend to make cold process soaps, please read and research the process carefully, it can be a hazardous as well as rewarding activity.

This is my airstream camper and it sits in our backyard. I bought it for the purpose of making soaps and pottery away from my munchkin, so she would not be harmed by the raw materials involved in soapmaking and pottery glazing. She still gets to go to the camper with me, but now I don't always have to worry with cleaning so much. I also don't have to set up shop each time I want to make something as it is all in place, ready to go. Ahhhh, what a luxury! It's been years in the making.
Here is my counter space, littered with drying soapmaking equipment. It looks cluttered, but is just the right size and keeps me efficient. When I start, everything is stacked neater and in order of use.
The first thing needed when making goat milk soap is the milk. I milk one of our does once a day, and she is with her kid all day, and still provides me with enough milk.
I cannot stress the importance of safety enough. I will eventually get to posting my own story of horror when I got lye in my eye. It was NOT pleasant. And you had better believe I use my safety equipment every time I make soap since that episode.
First, line your soap mold. I used to use drawer organizers from Walmart, 15x6x2 inch plastic trays. It took two of them for my recipe. I cut the bars into 3x3x1 inch bars - 4+ ounces each, 20 bars per batch. Now I'm using molds made by my hubby. I line them with wax paper. You can see a recently unmolded soap loaf in this picture also.
Another incredibly important issue with making soap is to measure everything accurately. This prevents lost time and ingredients due to a batch that didn't turn out because of inaccurate measurement. My habit is to work methodically and keep my recipe where I can see it.
Initially I measure all the oils that are solid at room temp. For my basic recipe, this is the cocoa butter, coconut oil, and palm kernel oil. I then heat over my single burner till mostly melted. While I wait for them to melt, I measure my liquid oils: the olive and sweet almond oil in one container and my oils that are added at trace in another (1 oz premium oil and scent).
Once they are mostly melted, I pull them from the heat source to prevent them from getting too hot. I like my oils and lye mix around 100 degrees F (plus or minus 10 degrees)
While the oils are cooling, I mix my lye solution. At this point I put on all my heavy duty protection. Then measure my goat milk. I use milk that has been frozen in ice cube trays. I have found this works best for me, with the least scorching of the milk. And yes, it is a real hassle to do, but it pays off.
Then I measure out the lye - slowly and carefully!!!!
Never become complacent when handling lye, always respect it and the damage it can do.
Then, pour the lye into the bowl with the goat milk ice cubes. NEVER the other way around.
Next, gently move the mix around. It will get soupy quickly, but if you stir too hard at first, you will splash/fling caustic material around. A new step I have added here is to filter the lye/milk solution. This prevents any undissolved lye from getting into the final soap. I would advise doing this only if your lye source seems to have this problem. I never had this problem when I used Red Devil lye (no longer available).
Here you can see the lye/milk mixture and the oil mixture ready to go.
Once the lye and milk mixture are completely liquid, I add the olive oil/sweet almond oil mixture to the cooling oils I had melted earlier. I mix these well.
I then add the lye mixture to the oils. Never the other way around! Notice I am holding the lye container near the inner edge of the oil pot - this has helped reduce splashes on me when pouring the lye.
This photo shows the lye almost completely added. You can see it settled below the oils in the pot. Also, at this point watch your lye mix. If any granules of lye are left in the bottom of the milk/lye mixture, you don't want them to sneak through. If there are any, wash them away when you clean up with plenty of water.
Here, I am starting to mix the lye with oils and you can see the oils are floating on top of the lye mix.
At this point you can see the two layers are starting to mix into one solution. But they settle apart if I stop stirring. You will see the difference in the next photo between this hand mixing and the stick blender effect.
Here's what it looks like after I just goosed the mix with the stick blender. You can see that the mix near the blender (far left in pot) is staying mixed, while the oils on right haven't been mixed with the blender yet.
Here, I've mixed around in the pot a bit and it's starting to stay mixed and not separate out.
More mixing, and the blend is coming together.
This picture really illustrates how it is mostly mixed, but there are stills some swirls of oil left to incorporate before I can anticipate the trace. This is probably 5 minutes after I added the lye to the oils. I love my stick blender!!
Here it is all mixed into a uniform blend. I can now watch for a trace (Trace is when lines of the soap liquid stay on top of the batch before sinking into the mixture).
I consider this a light trace.
I consider this a heavy trace and try to add my premium oil/fragrance blend prior to heavy trace.
After I add the last oil addition, I mix well with a spoon. I don't usually use the stick blender at this point. Then I pour it into the mold. As you can see in this picture it is a good thing I have my safety gear still on, as I've managed to spray some of the soap mixture out of the mold. This could as easily have been a splash and gone into an eye or landed on my skin and caused damage. I wish I had staged this event, but truthfully, it was a normal accident and it proves they happen. Now to clean up - paper towels help a lot.
The final step is to put plastic wrap on top to prevent ash on top. I never insulate my milk soaps. Nor do I chill them. I just let them sit for 12-24 hours then unmold and cut the loaf into bars. The bars are cured on screens for a minimum of 4 weeks.
I then step outside to the sink to clean up my soapy equipment. Wiping them down with paper towels helps reduce the work at the sink and makes washing easier. This is the view from my airstream in beautiful East TN in springtime.


Here is my basic soap recipe. I have tweaked this over the years and I'm sure I'll change it again, but here are the basic proportions. I use the MMS lye calculator, but there are many free calculators online. If you decide to use my recipe but need to substitute something, remember to run it through the a calculator. The amount of lye used in my recipe is specific to the exact oils and their exact weights.

Sweet Almond Oil 3.5 ounces
Cocoa Butter 3 ounces
Coconut Oil 19 ounces
Olive Oil 25.5 ounces
Palm Oil 13 ounces

Lye 9.0 ounces

Goat Milk 24 ounces
Premium Oil: Jojoba/Avocado Oil - 1 ounce at trace
Scent of Choice in amount you prefer - usually 1-3 ounces, depending on the scent
"Get a bicycle. You will not regret it if you live." ~Mark Twain, Taming the Bicycle