Hey there!
On this week’s What I Made Wedneday, Erika Markley from Markley Farms is sharing her all natural goat’s milk soap recipe with us! Enjoy!
Much love,
KD ✌🏼
Hello! I’m Erica Markley from Markley Farms
We live on a small parcel of land in Indiana. We raise chickens, Nigerian Dwarf goats, and American Guinea hogs. We started our farm/homestead life in 2016 after we separated from the Army. We are first generation farmers.
I started my creative journey while we were stationed in South Korea. I turned to hand stamped tags to occupy my time. I opened my Etsy shop in 2011. I have since dabbled in multiply arenas: hand stamping tags, jewelry, skin care products, wood signs, re purposed furniture, goat’s milk soap, and paintings. As of right now, my main focus is soap and paintings. I am a lifelong learner. I am always looking to learn and do new things.
I started making soap just last year. I have been painting for 4 years. This was a 3 year journey. I wanted goats just so I could do this! It’s been a dream of mine to make artisan goat cheese and goat’s milk soap.
How to Make All Natural Goat’s Milk Soap
About the Recipe
When it comes to making soap, the possibilities are endless on what fats/oils and what liquids you can use. Along with the amounts you want to use. I made this recipe with only three ingredients. I wanted this recipe to be uncomplicated for beginner soap makers. If you don’t have olive oil or goat’s milk, any fat/liquid will work. Brambleberry.com is a wonderful soaper’s resource. I go there and use their lye calculator when I’m using different oils. I would recommend checking them out. I also superfat my soaps. This means I add additional oil to the recipe so that no lye is ever left over after the soaponifying process. I do 4% superfat. Brambleberry also helps with this if you choose to superfat.
This recipe is for the soap molds you can buy on Amazon. There is a little math involved with calculating how many ounces a mold will hold. This will in turn tell you how many ounces of oils to use and you can plug that information into the Brambleberry lye calculator. This soap recipe has a batch total weight of 34 ounces. Also, let’s talk about lye safety. When lye comes into contact with a liquid, it becomes very hot very fast and has a strong odor. Do not breathe it in. Be sure to wear long sleeves or long, thick gloves. If you do come into contact with the lye, vinegar helps neutralize the sting.
Ingredients:
85 grams of lye
190 grams of raw, frozen goat’s milk
24 ounces of organic extra virgin olive oil
Tools:
Digital scale with both grams and ounces
Immersion blender
Saucepan
Big glass bowl
Spatula
Thermometer
Soap loaf mold
Long gloves, like ones used for dishwashing
Instructions:
I freeze my goat’s milk for soap making for three reasons. Firstly, as I said before, lye becomes very hot and will scorch the milk. Secondly, you don’t have to wait on your lye/liquid mixture to cool. Lastly, I premeasure and fill each breastmilk bag with the amount to make one batch of soap. Ok, let’s get into it!
First thing I do is get my lye/liquid going. Put on your gloves! I open up the breastmilk bag and put the milk in the glass bowl. Set your bowl on your digital scale and tare the scale back to zero grams. I then measure out my lye directly onto my milk. Set that aside and start on the oils.
I now turn my digital scale to ounces. I set my saucepan on the scale and tare it back to zero. Pour in 24 ounces of olive oil. Put this on the stove on low to heat to 100 degrees, give or take 20 degrees.
By this time, the lye has been melting the milk. Constant stirring will help this melt faster. When the lye/liquid mixture is fully incorporated, we need to take the temperature. It needs to be 100 degrees, give or take 20 degrees.
When the oil is at temperature, add it to the lye/liquid. This is when we use the immersion blender.
I blend 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off. We blend the mixture until it comes to trace. This takes about 5 to 10 minutes. When soap comes to trace, it looks like thin pudding. This is a good time to add clays or essential oils. The soap can be poured into the mold at this point. I like to take my soap to a heavier trace so I can swirl the tops. At heavy trace, it is more the consistency of custard and will hold its shape.
I pour the soap in the mold and use a spoon to swirl the top. I put my soap in a cardboard box, a shoe box works great. Let it sit in a warmish place. The soap needs to soaponifying for 24 to 48 hours before it can be cut into bars. Once cut, the soap will need to cure an additional 4 to 6 weeks before use.
Thank you for checking out my featured What I Made Wednesday blog post. If you’re interested in purchasing the soap I have made, please head over to my Etsy Shop.
Sincerely,
Erica Markley
Etsy Shop | Instagram
