I have had two rough soaping experiences recently where things did not go as planned... (Here & here). Feeling a little gun shy I was tempted to just do a Plain-Jane soap (not a thing wrong with that!). While writing up a recipe curiosity ended up getting the better of me. I had some 'weirdness' the last time I used buttermilk. I still have buttermilk left over so I want to try it again. I just can't admit defeat!
Dairy in soaps intimidates me. I've had it overheat more than once, get a cheesy smell and generally misbehave. So let's try and conquer that fear. Milks are touchy in that you don't want to scorch them with lye and special measures must be taken to avoid doing so.
I have a few people who asked if they could give my soaps out as Christmas presents (which is really flattering). Production must be upped! Instead of my usual 20oz mold I'm going with the 50oz. Yeah, yeah why the heck am I experimenting with way more ingredients?! What if it all goes wrong?! Caution to the wind I guess...
To make a white milk soap you need to soap cool. Cool in all ways. Freeze your milk ahead of time. You can measure what you need and freeze it, or you can measure after and just make up the rest with distilled water if you are a little short. It's good to have regular ice handy if you need to make a water bath to put your lye-milk solution in. You should also clear out room in your fridge and freezer for your mold.
I used a classic balanced recipe for this since I didn't want any surprises or bad behavior from the base recipe! Mix of the usual palm, coconut and olive with a little castor and babassu thrown in. I used Bramble Berry's Pink Grapefruit fragrance. I have used this once before and while it didn't accelerate or discolor, it faded to nothing by the end of the cure. It was a soap that needed a long cure of 8+ weeks, but it was scentless by 6 weeks. This time I went strong with the fragrance. Their fragrance calculator says for a 48oz batch, 2.80oz would be strong. I had just a little under 3oz in a bottle so I just used all of it. I did a drop swirl for the first time and used two colors for the drop and a white base. I knew that the Pink Grapefruit did not discolor and judging from the Baby Bars, the milk wouldn't discolor either. I didn't take a picture of my colorants and fragrance mixed up this time. I used the Red Orange Mica from Nurture Soap Supplies (the one I let go grainy here) and Electric Bubblegum neon from Bramble Berry. For the white base I added one tablespoon dispersed titanium dioxide.
Break for mini news flash!!!!
I have been struggling with my water soluble titanium dioxide dissolving. I did some research online and decided to mix up a larger batch, let it sit longer before using and add some glycerin. I used 2oz distilled water, 1oz vegetable glycerin and 1oz titanium dioxide. I mixed the water and glycerin and heated them slightly before adding the titanium dioxide. I let that set up for about half a day before using. It seemed more incorporated at the get go than it does when I just use water.
I weighed out the frozen buttermilk I had left over. Not quite enough!
I needed a little over an ounce of distilled water to make up for what I lacked in buttermilk. I decided to add silk to it, cause, ya know. I added the milk ice to the distilled water/silk mix and then slowly poured lye over it. Doing this again, I will pour a little lye in the silk and water mix before adding the milk ice. The silk didn't really dissolve all the way.
Milk and water! I only use that Pyrex measuring cup for food related soap additives so I can also use it later for cooking, so the magic is happening in the trusty plastic lye cup! My fragrances and colorants are lined up in the back ground. I think I'll use a larger cup next time, I almost flipped a few cubes out while stirring. There is a lot of stirring involved... I keep it moving until the cubes and lye are both dissolved.
I got a decent amount of chunkiness in this lye-milk-silk mixture. Some of it could have been the silk and some just super fatty buttermilk reacting with lye. When I added the mixture to the oils I stick blended quite a bit to make sure it was 100% mixed in and homogenized.
I really like using flake style lye with milk. It's really easy to tell when the lye is dissolved because you can no longer hear the flakes clinking around. I used beads once and it worked fine, but I was really paranoid about whether or not they had all been incorporated. I used a water bath once before and the milk got too cold. Too cold meaning my oils would be solid if they were that cold. So I added milk/lye with oils at vastly different temps and it thickened up too much to design or color. That in mind I went sans water bath this time and just kept my eye on the temp and the milk color. Milk will turn yellow then orange when scorched. Mine capped out at a cool 80-85°F. I melted and mixed my oils first thing so they would have time to cool down. Oil cools very sllloooowwwlllyyy. However, if you don't have your components both at the right temperature at the right time there is a solution. Just wait until they both come to room temp, then soap. That is also a good way to make sure things move slower. Granted this doesn't work with a soap recipe that has beeswax (any wax) or lots of hard oils.
I made 48oz of soap so I separated out one cup for each orange and pink and one cup of plain white soap for the top layer. I mixed the tablespoon of dispersed titanium dioxide into the base before I poured off a cup of it for a topper. Also, since I knew the fragrance was slow moving, I added it to the the whole batch before coloring and separating, something I almost never do. I used the scale to measure off the separate cups of soap. It makes it fool proof!
From a high point I poured the pink soap straight down the middle of the mold. I repeated this with the orange soap. Then layered over the cup of white soap. Layering was a breeze because things were at a nice medium trace! I poured the white layer over a spatula to keep it from breaking through.
I had some pink and orange left after the pour so I poured them in lines down the middle and swirled them. Just didn't want to waste any soap!
After it was all poured I put it in the freezer for about an hour. I kept checking the side of the mold with my hand for temperature. It stayed nice and cool. After the hour was up I transferred it to the fridge. I checked it periodically there to make sure it wasn't heating up. If it had been I would have popped it back in the freezer to cool down. No funny oily vomit like the Baby soap! No weeping fragrance oil or heat tunnels like the Pumpkick soap! I'm wondering if there is any detriment to just putting all my soaps in the fridge? I'd rather they stay cool than risk overheating. It seems soapers are of two minds about gelling soaps and milk soaps. Some gel everything as the colors are brighter and the bar is harder sooner. I think I'm starting to fall firmly in the other camp, of not gelling anything. Maybe heat, and not milk, is my enemy?
The view of the bottom. It looks blurry (it might be a tiny bit blurry) but I think it's more the diffuse look of the pink and orange soap barely showing through the bottom.
Here they are! I think some of them look like faces and some look like tongues. Next time I will pour in different spots and from different heights so there will be staggered drops. I also did not read about drop swirls creating air bubbles until after I made this, but they make some of the drops look like super cute faces so I'm fine with it! Also I forgot this was RED Orange so while it's a really pretty color, it blends a little too much with the pink. I should have done a lighter pink or a lighter orange.
View of the swirly top!
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