Adding Milks to Melted Oils before Lye solution (Discount)

blacdance · Jan 21, 2013

Does anyone here ever add their milks and clay mixture to your melted oils and discount the water that will be used with your lye?

I would like to use Coconut Milk, Buttermilk (Powder or Liquid) with Kaolin Clay and add them to my melted oils and then discount my water/liquid that I will use for my lye solution. Meaning, I'd like to have my milks already pre-mixed and then add it to my melted oils...Stick blend that and then add my lye solution to it and stick blend that and continue the normal process.

However, I know that I need to discount my water amount. I don't want my batch to be lye heavy though. So, what I'm assuming is that because the milks have fat in them (to a certain percent) and the lye amount will still be kept the same as it's based off the amount of oils I'm using, I may not have anything to worry about. It will all mix together well.

Am I incorrect with my thought process? I've seen this done on Youtube, however, there weren't any percentages, etc. provided. The person does discount their water for the addition of their milks and clays.

Any help out there would be fantastic!

Thanks

RocknRoll · Jan 21, 2013

I use coconut milk for every batch I make (except for when I use a dairy milk) and this is how I've always added it. I never use a water discount and all my batches have turned out just fine! hope this helps.

AlchemyandAshes · Jan 21, 2013

Liquid Discount has nothing to do with lye heaviness. The only thing that you MUST do is mix your lye with equal parts of water (50% lye concentration) so that it will dissolve completely. You would discount your liquid upfront (what you mix with your lye) by how much milk you add to your oils.
You absolutely can add your milk and clays to your oils...just give em a go with the stick blender before you add your lye.
Depending on the milk you use, you may wind up with a slightly higher superfat fom the fats in the milk, but there's no way to know exactly how much.

Hazel · Jan 21, 2013

I don't discount the water per se. I use enough water to dissolve the lye and the remainder of the liquid amount is buttermilk or half and half. For example, I'll use 6 oz water to dissolve the lye and 6 oz buttermilk if the recipe calls for 12 oz liquid and 5.5 oz lye.

I mix the buttermilk in after I've added the lye and already blended a little to get the lye solution dispersed through the batch. I've added buttermilk before the lye and both ways worked for me. You can also mix some buttermilk powder into the buttermilk if you want a batch with 100% buttermilk.

I've only used clay for color and in cream soap for slip. For a colorant, I blended the clay with a little water to make a slurry and then poured some of the soap into the cup and blended to mix it. It worked very well but I wasn't using much clay. I've read adding clay to the oils is possibly the easiest way to get it dispersed. You just want to make sure you blend very well and there aren't any lumps on the bottom. Although it was mentioned that lighter clays like kaolin can be mixed in the water for the lye. I haven't tried it this way so I don't know how well it would work.

RocknRoll · Jan 21, 2013

Hazel said:
I don't discount the water per se. I use enough water to dissolve the lye and the remainder of the liquid amount is buttermilk or half and half. For example, I'll use 6 oz water to dissolve the lye and 6 oz buttermilk if the recipe calls for 12 oz liquid and 5.5 oz lye.

I mix the buttermilk in after I've added the lye and already blended a little to get the lye solution dispersed through the batch. I've added buttermilk before the lye and both ways worked for me. You can also mix some buttermilk powder into the buttermilk if you want a batch with 100% buttermilk.

I've only used clay for color and in cream soap for slip. For a colorant, I blended the clay with a little water to make a slurry and then poured some of the soap into the cup and blended to mix it. It worked very well but I wasn't using much clay. I've read adding clay to the oils is possibly the easiest way to get it dispersed. You just want to make sure you blend very well and there aren't any lumps on the bottom. Although it was mentioned that lighter clays like kaolin can be mixed in the water for the lye. I haven't tried it this way so I don't know how well it would work.

Thats how I do it too, using half the water amount as milk and the ther half as my water/lye solution. I havent worked too much with clays although id like to.