Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Oatmeal & Honey Soap

This is almost exactly like the coconut milk soap, but I added oatmeal and honey, so I adjusted the liquid just a little to account for the honey. This is the soap my mother in law likes to use.

Ingredients:
8 oz. Coconut Oil
20 oz. Lard
4 oz. Safflower Oil
2 oz. Castor Oil
4.5 oz. Lye
5 oz. Goat Milk
5 oz. Water
2 oz. Honey
0.6 oz. Finely Ground Oatmeal

- Put oils in a crock pot or double boiler and allow to melt. Heat it to 90-120 degrees F.
- Slowly pour lye into your water, or water and frozen milk. I had used frozen goat milk (measured the night before, put in a plastic bag, and placed in the freezer). But you could also just mix together the lye into your water, and add the coconut milk later just before your soap reaches light trace (if you did freeze it). The idea is, you don't want to burn the milk, which can happen easily with things that contain sugars.
- Let the lye and liquid mix to cool to the same temperature you have your oil, whatever that is, somewhere between 90-120 degrees F. You want them to be within 10 degrees of each other.
- Once they're at the temperatures you want, put the oil in a bowl (glass, heat resistant plastic, or stainless steel - do not use aluminum, cast iron, or copper).
- Mix these together till they reach light trace (if you took a spoon or something and tried to trace a snaky line, it would stay). This looks a bit like pudding.
- If you want you can add other things at this time. I added in my oatmeal and honey. Honey will turn the soap a red or burnt brown color almost immediately. The first time I saw this I thought I'd ruined my soap. It was fine though, and later turned into a nice medium brown color like you often see in oatmeal & honey soaps.
- Pour into your mold and let it set left alone for 24-48 hours.
- Once firm enough, it can be removed from the mold and left to cure for 4-6 weeks.

6 comments:

  1. Can you substitute vegetable shortening for the lard?

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    1. Yes - BUT - you still need to run the recipe through a soap calculator. Not all oils are the same, and not all vegetable shortenings are the same. I've seen soap calculators that list crisco as an option. You would just have to look around and find the calculator that works for you. What was the reason you wanted to substitute? Maybe I can help more if I knew that.

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  2. I am a dermivegitarian? Lard just seems so bacony. I might try eating it.

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    Replies
    1. In all seriousness, I think vegetarians usually go for palm oil when replacing the lard.

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  3. Is lard the best thing to use, is it cheap? I guess after the lye reacts with it it's no longer "food". Just seems weird using bacon drippings in soap. lol

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  4. I like lard because it's so white, and makes a hard soap. And ya, the price is good in our area. Canola is cheaper, but soft oils make a soft bar. I don't like the lather from the soaps I've made that were too high in soft oils... it's sorta slimy. The only way to make soap is from oils, lye, and liquid. If lard seems strange to you, then try something else. Look over this chart and maybe some of the oils listed will interest you. http://www.lovinsoap.com/oils-chart/

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