No longer just a beverage, goat milk is finding its way into a number of beauty products. From lotions and creams to shampoos and conditioners, goat milk has taken its place as the star ingredient. Not least of all is its appearance in soap. Goat milk soap ranks high in the list of natural beauty products for good reason, as its benefits target some of the key concerns of men and women. It is easy to get your hands on this little bar of miracles, and whether you choose to make it or to buy it, you will not regret adding it to your beauty arsenal.
What Is Goat Milk Soap?
The most fundamental difference between goat milk soap and all other varieties is that it uses goat milk as the base. To this can be added various oils and essential oils. This soap can be made by the hot process method, but the best kind will use the cold process, as this will help retain the maximum nutritional benefits of the goat milk.
Goat Milk Soap Benefits
Soap made out of goat milk may sound like a strange concept, but it actually is some of the best kind of soap you can use. Being extremely gentle, it operates with the use of what are known as alpha hydroxy acids, which help to remove dead skin cells simply by dissolving their bonds and freeing them from the living cells. The lactic acid naturally occurring in goat milk is an alpha hydroxy acid, so goat milk soap can achieve its exfoliating properties without the addition of harsh chemicals.
Having sloughed away the dead skin cells, goat milk soap and all its skin-loving properties can penetrate quickly into the skin. For example, goat milk soap contains many important vitamins and minerals, especially vitamin A and selenium. While selenium can help in fighting against damage from the sun, vitamin A has properties excellent in anti-aging and in achieving and maintaining healthy skin. These vitamins and minerals successfully combat acne and help psoriasis and eczema.
The moisture content of goat milk soap is another benefit to note. Goat milk soap contains cream, and the fats in this prevent the soap from sucking the moisture out of your skin. Because of the qualities of the goat milk, it can even add moisture to your skin, making this kind of soap an excellent choice especially for those with dry skin. This is also a reason why goat milk lotion is so popular.
How to Make Goat Milk Soap
Homemade goat milk soap is not difficult to achieve, but there are special techniques which you must learn. We’ll start out by covering some common pitfalls you’ll want to avoid. Then, I share two recipes for homemade goat milk soap, which you can use to make your very own.
Common Pitfalls When Making Homemade Soap
One of the most important points is freezing the goat milk before you mix it with lye. Lye heats up any material added to it, and if you add milk in its liquid state, you may end up burning it. Therefore, freezing the milk allows the heat of the lye to operate in thawing the milk rather than warming it up.
It is also crucial that you not allow the soap to gel. This means that you do not want to allow the soap to heat sufficiently to become thick and translucent. In some soaps, gelling is desirable, but in milk-based soaps, burning and curdling are too much of a danger. To avoid this, keep your ingredients cold, work in a cold environment, and freeze or refrigerate your soaps for at least 24 hours after pouring.
A third difficulty is determining when you reach trace, or the commencement of saponification. Since you are using cold ingredients, it is easy to make mistakes as to when trace actually occurs. You can blend until you achieve a pudding-like consistency, but sometimes, because the coconut oil ingredient hardens as it cools, the thickness of the mixture is deceptive. The solution is to blend longer than you think you need to and to make sure that all the oil is completely incorporated.
Handmade Goat Milk Soap Recipes
You can find several different goat milk soap recipes, but they will all have a few things in common. Every recipe will include goat milk, of course, but it will also require lye and a number of different oils. The oils themselves vary from recipe to recipe, but coconut oil makes a frequent appearance.
Also, although cold-process goat milk soap looks and feels the best, it is also possible to make it according to the hot process. In the second goat milk soap recipe, both methods are demonstrated.
Goat Milk Soap with Honey Recipe
This first recipe comes from Oh, the Things We’ll Make and includes three different oils and one table spoon of honey.
Goat Milk Soap Recipe Ingredients
- 90 grams distilled water
- 95 grams goat milk
- 175 grams coconut oil
- 75 grams avocado oil
- 350 grams olive oil
- 84.96 grams lye
- 1 tablespoon honey
Goat Milk Soap Recipe Instructions
- Freeze the goat milk until it is at least slushy.
- Pour water into a bowl and add the lye.
- Mix the lye and water thoroughly.
- Add the goat milk, still stirring until it is melted and completely mixed in.
- Measure the oils and mix them in a different bowl.
- Pour the lye solution into the oils and fully mix, stirring gently.
- Use an immersion blender for several minutes until you reach trace.
- Add the honey and any essential oils and blend.
- Pour the mixture into soap molds.
- Put the molds in the freezer or refrigerator if the weather is warm, or place them somewhere cool and ventilated, leaving them uncovered.
- Wait two days and then remove the soap from the molds. Cut into bars if necessary.
- Cure the soap for 4 to 8 weeks.
Milk and Honey Goat Milk Soap Recipes
This second recipe is really two different recipes, one cold and one hot version by The Nerdy Farm Wife.
Goat Milk Soap Ingredients
- 28 grams water
- 255 grams milk (227 grams for cold-process version)
- 115 grams lye
- 198 grams coconut oil
- 113 grams sunflower oil
- 397 grams olive oil
- 57 grams sweet almond oil
- 57 grams shea butter
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 3 tablespoons water (for hot-process version)
Goat Milk Soap Recipe Directions
- Freeze the milk overnight in ice cube trays.
- Put the milk in a container and add water.
- Slowly pour the lye into the milk and water, thoroughly stirring after each addition. Set aside for 10 minutes.
- Melt the coconut oil and shea butter over low heat. Pour the other oils into a bowl, and then add the coconut oil and shea butter.
- Add the lye solution and stir for 30 seconds before blending with an immersion blender.
- Blend for 30 to 40 seconds, and then stir for the same amount of time. Continue to alternate until you reach trace.
Cold Process for Making Goat Milk Soap
1. Add honey. Pour everything into a mold and cover with wax paper. Place it somewhere cool or refrigerate it for 12 to 24 hours.
2. After at least 24 hours, take the soap from the mold, cut it as needed, and cure for 4 weeks.
Hot Process for Making Goat Milk Soap
1. Pour the mixture into a slow cooker. Cook on low for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes.
2. Add the honey and water, rapidly stirring.
3. Spoon the mixture into a mold.
4. After 24 hours, take it out and slice it.
5. Optional: Cure for a few weeks.
Purchasing the Best Goat Milk Soap
If these handmade goat milk soap recipes are not for you, you can still enjoy all the benefits of goat milk soap. There are several varieties on the market, many of which are of excellent quality. Two among these choices , however, stand out as the best goat milk soap to buy.
Beekman 1802 soap ranks among the best of the best goat milk soap. Made entirely of natural, farm-derived ingredients, Beekman goat milk soap is as wholesome as the homemade varieties. The company likes to include skin-loving jojoba oil, which renders the soap doubly moisturizing and often adds rich ingredients such as shea butter and honey. Available in a number of scents, ingredient combinations, and sizes, there is a version of soap to satisfy every need.
Click HERE to view and purchase Beekman 1802 Goat Milk Soap.
Another soap which deserves mention as taking a place among the most excellent is Canus goat milk soap. Although the options are not as varied as Beekman’s, the quality is still abundantly present. Without dyes, colorants, phosphates, parabens or EDTA, Canus soap is plant-based and made with fresh, local goat’s milk. It comes in a few different ingredients and fragrance combinations, such as shea butter and lavender oil, each of which adds its own special benefits to the advantages shared by them all.
Click HERE to view and purchase Canus Goat Milk Soap.
Where to Buy Goat Milk Soap
Goat milk soap is easy to find. While there is an abundance of homemade varieties on such websites as Etsy, you can also get access to a good quality product at many health food stores and farmers’ markets. If you want the best commercial goat milk soaps, however, Beekman, Canus and Bend Soap Company soaps are available on their own websites as well as on Amazon.
Goat Milk Soap Benefits Your Skin
Goat milk soap is a powerful weapon to add to your beauty arsenal. With its many nutrients and rich moisture, it nourishes your skin in a way it has never been nourished before. It doesn’t matter whether you make it or buy it; homemade or commercial, goat milk soap offers innumerable benefits to your skin.