Ready for part 3 of milk cold process soap? We are going to follow the same recipe and steps as the posts before, but we are going to use buttermilk instead.
Oils ready for the microwave.
1) Calculate the amount of lye and liquid needed for the oils you plan to use.
Adding lye to the water.
3) Measure the lye and set aside.
4) Measure HALF of the needed liquid as water and set aside. Measure HALF of the needed liquid as milk and set aside. Milk should be room temperature, not frozen or heated.
Adding lye to the water.
Mixing the lye solution.
7) Add fragrance. Pour into prepared SHALLOW molds (1 inch deep or so). Milk soaps can get very hot and shallow molds help the excess heat dump into the air. This will prevent the milk sugars from interrupting the saponification reaction.
Adding the lye solution to the melted oils.
Collect needed items:
| Ingredients Hydrogenated Soybean Oil Coconut Oil Olive Oil Sodium Hydroxide Buttermilk Water |
Equipment Scale Soap Spoon Gloves Extra Large Square Tray Mold Square Tray Mold Immersion Blender |
| Time spent: Weighing time: 8 minutes Adding lye to water: 15 seconds, followed by 60 seconds of stirring Heating of oils time: 3 minutes Pouring lye solution into the fat mixture: 10 seconds Using immersion blender to mix soap solution: 90 seconds Adding milk to the batch: 20 seconds Using immersion blender to completely mix milk into soap: 40 seconds Pour into molds: 60 seconds Allow soap to rest: 24 hours |
| Recipe in ounces: 40 ounces weight Hydrogenated Soybean Oil 20 ounces weight Coconut Oil 20 ounces weight Olive Oil 11.1 ounces Sodium Hydroxide |
Mixing the batch to halfway to trace.
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 Adding the milk to the batch.  Beginning to pour the batch into the mold. |
 Batch at complete trace.  Filling the second mold. |
I am going to try this method-
I just have one question- do you cover the molds at all or just leave them out?
I *think* that one would leave them uncovered so as not to make too much heat, but want to make sure 🙂
I can’t wait to see the finished soaps- thanks for a great series!!
—Kathy
No covering. You are on the right path with your thinking. Try to make sure the cat and kids don’t poke at your soap.
Thanks- will try this soon!
I tried this recipe and it was a disaster lots of oil settled on top, the lye was not enough to saphonify the oils. This recipe just did not work for me. I ran the recipe through a lye calculator and it needed more lye so I made it over and it was ok, will cut it today. I made the buttermilk recipe.
11 ounces is approximately 6.8% excess fat. This should be just fine. Separation is a problem with batches that are made too cold and not reaching a true trace before pouring into the mold.