Soap Molds and Goat's Milk Soap

by Larry Mitchell
(Youngsville, LA)

Your soap mold formula says to "calculate the OIL" amounts. What about the other ingredients, such as lye, water, EO's, etc. The oils may total 48 oz, but the total fluid volume may be 70 oz. Which fluid volume do you use to fill the mold?

Do you have any goat's milk recipes?

You have the MOST informative soap making website that I've found. Thank you for all of the information for us new soaper's!

Thanks,

Larry Mitchell
SOI natural candles
Youngsville, LA

larry.mitchell@soinaturalcandles.com

Answer:
Hi Larry,

When you use the soap mold volume formula it takes into account the amount of water. The rest of the ingredients aren't enough to worry about. I've never had too much soap for my soap mold using this formula unless I add too many soap chunks/curls/bits, etc.

Once you know how much oil is needed in your recipe, decide on which oils you want to use and then input the numbers into SoapCalc.

SoapCalc will give you your lye and water amounts and you're set to go. The total volume of soap will fit into your mold.

I don't really have a goat's milk soap recipe. My milk ones tend to use coconut milk. You can, however, replace the coconut milk in my recipes with goat's milk with no problem.

I always add milk at a light trace so a concentrate is better. Simply take liquid goat's milk and add some powdered goat's milk to make it a concentrate. That way you get all the goodness of the milk without worrying about the lye burning the milk. Adding milk at trace also makes for a whiter bar of soap.


Any recipe can be made into a goat's milk recipe as well. Just reduce the amount of water to about 2/3 and replace the remaining 1/3 with goat's milk which you will add at a thin trace.

Milk soaps will heat up faster in the soap mold than regular soaps so you will need to keep an eye on it. As soon as it reaches a full gel, uncover it and let it cool down. Some people put a fan on it as well. This also seems to help with reducing soda ash that can form on top of the soap. If you haven't heard of soda ash, it's a thin layer of white powdery residue that some find distasteful. I don't worry too much about it...in fact sometimes it looks really neat if you have sculpted the tops of the soap to looked whipped. Regardless, it washes off with the first use.

THANK YOU so much for the compliment about my site being informative. That's the goal I am trying to achieve. Soap making can be quite confusing to start and the more information you have the better.

Good luck and have fun!
Cathy