Simple Hobby Homesteading

Time for another soap installment!

We are going to up the difficulty level ever so slightly but still within the realm of “yes, YOU can do this!” Trust me, if I can do it, anyone can do it.

This soap recipe takes a little preparation ahead of time to freeze your goat’s milk and infuse your olive oil with chamomile. It is well worth the effort as this is one of my fastest selling bars (only to be outdone by my most basic goat’s milk bar which has such a boring recipe but amazing results.)

You need all your basic supplies for cold process soap making. These include:

• Safety goggles/glasses
• Good rubber gloves (like the ones you’d wash dishes with… not the thin “surgical” gloves. We are not doing surgery here people.)
• Container to put frozen goat’s milk in (thick plastic pitcher works well as does a 4 cup glass Pyrex meassuring glass… that’s what I use.)
• Thermometer (candy thermometer works well though I prefer my longer sciency looking one that I nabbed from Jackson’s chemistry stuff… note to self, order Jackson another thermometer.)
• Stainless steel pot… must be stainless steel as lye does nasty things to other types
• temperature resistent stirrer of some sort (shout out to my Pampered Chef rubber scrapers… always want to call them spatulas but those are the things you flip pancakes with. Seems like the two utensils should share the name.)
• Some sort of soap mold. Check out my “Grocery Store Soap” post to get some good YouTube videos of how to make a mold out of an ordinary box…

https://simplehobbyhomesteading.com/diy-homemade-grocery-store-soap-yes-you-can-do-this/

• spray bottle with vinegar (to be used in case you spill any lye on your worksurface)
• Kitchen scale (I keep mine in a gallon size plastic bag to keep it clean while measuring oils)
• Container to measure oils in and a separate container to measure lye in.
• Immersion blender… you could get away without this but it cuts the mixing time down considerably! Compare 3 or 4 minutes of pulsating an immersion blender with 30 to 45 minutes of constant brisk hand stirring… yup I’ll buy the $15 immersion blender.
• Crockpot (this is used to infuse the olive oil with the chamomile. No worries, you can use the crockpot for food again, no lye will be touching it)
• Big bowl for ice water or hot water

Ok, now that we got supplies all out of the way let’s get on to the fun stuff… ingredients! Remember everything is by weight, not fluid ounces.

1. Olive oil: 65 ounces total (for infusing) though only 48.8 ounces will go into soap (not the extra virgin or the virgin… look for the regular ol’ classic.)
2. Chamomile leaves: 1 box or 1/4 pound of loose leaves/flowers (you can easily use a whole box of chamomile tea. Cut bags open and empty contents into crockpot)
3. Castor oil: 4.3 ounces (often found in the medicine aisle of a store)
4. Goat’s Milk: 20 ounces (get buddy buddy with someone with goats or buy it in the baking aisle of the store)
5. Lye: 6.6 ounces

This recipe perfectly fills two of the white molds I got at Michaels with my 40% off coupon 🙂

That’s it, five ingredients. Almost seems easier than the grocery store soap doesn’t it! The goat’s milk and preparation is what is going to kick this one up a notch. If we were cooking I’d say “Bam!”… another note to self, come up with a cool word while soaping that means “Bam”

Put your goat’s milk in the freezer until it is very frozen. What’s “very frozen” you ask? Not slushy like, actual frozen chunks.

* Side note… have you seen the movie “Frozen” yet? Sooooooo cute! Tons of singing so my boys tried to hate it but they liked it and asked if we could get it, score!

Combine all 65 ounces of your olive oil with loose chamomile leaves/flowers in the crockpot and set on low for 3 to 4 hours (I just do mine overnight).

After olive oil has been infused strain the chamomile out of the olive oil (I have a little sieve just for this job but cheesecloth would work too). No worries if some of the chamomile flowers/leaves make their way through and into the olive oil, it adds to the prettiness of the bar. However, you do not want all of them in there… too much pretty can be a bad thing.

Step 1: Weigh out the olive oil and castor oil. Heat them on low in the stainless steel pot.

Step 2: Get your molds ready (line them, grease them with crisco, whatever trips your trigger)

Step 3: Put pitcher/Pyrex on scale and zero out the scale. Add your 20 ounces of goat’s milk.

Step 4: Get your big bowl of ice water ready… just in case.

Step 5: Put on safety gear! Ensure worsurface and area is safe, send the kids and animals out of the room to watch a movie… ooh FROZEN!

Step 6: Measure out lye. Add lye to milk slowly and stir slowly and constantly. Check the temperature often and if it goes above 130 degrees stop adding lye and put pitcher/Pyrex in ice water bowl. Continue adding lye slowly and then stir, stir, stir checking temperature often. You do not want milk getting past 140 degrees or it could easily scald and that creates a nasty smell and somewhat unsightly appearance (though some people like the appearance I haven’t met anyone who likes the smell).

Step 7: Check temperatrure of oils. Check temperature of lye mixture. Get them both between 90 and 115 degrees (both need to be about (within 5 degrees) the same temperature). If your lye mixture gets too cold dump your bowl of ice water and fill with hot water. Put your pitcher/Pyrex in the hot water and stir to warm it up.

Step 8: When both are about the same temperature slowly add lye mixture to oils and stir to incorporate. With your immersion blender pulse, pulse, pulse until you get a medium to thick trace. When I did this today it took me about 4 minutes to get to a medium, almost thick trace. If you want you can add some of the chamomile that you strained out of not much got into the oil. I added about a tablespoon.

Step 9: Pour into molds.

Step 10: You can cover this soap if you would like but I have found that this particular recipe turns out great without covering.

After 36 hours in mold you can unmold and slice. Then the hard part… waiting the 4 to 6 weeks for it to cure! UGH! It’s so worth it though.

This bar is so amazing for people with sensitive skin, especially babies. I always love to give this at baby showers.

I’ll update with a pic after I unmold tomorrow. Can’t wait!

May the soaping force be with you!

Jhenna