C&E, I thought you were doing soap speak... But I sure didn't know about the palm oil. Also have no idea what titanium dioxide is so it looks like I am going to miss the mark by a far amount. Dang it. $8 for a 3.5 ish oz of soap is too much for my blood. I will have to see how my goatmilk turned out......
Maybe you could comment on the method I used. The soap came out darker than the lard soap. The evaporated goat milk was refrigerated and the lye/water solution was cooled in an ice bath before mixing. Hoping not to burn the milk (as if I fully understood the term)! Would that account for the color?
Anyways thanks
Titanium dioxide is used as a colorant (for White color of soap) but not a lot of it can be used, as was mentioned. (It is also used in some many food products, so you would see it on a lot of ingredient labels.)
Lard reportedly produces a very nice lather, so it wouldn't only be from the goats milk.
As someone who was once so new at this that I also went through the stage you are at now with making goatsmilk soap and not being sure what was going on and the smells and so on and so forth, I'd just like to encourage you to keep on trying. Mixing any milk product with lye is a challenge when you are new. There are so many methods available to us, but the one we seem to read about first seems to be the one that suggests you have to freeze the milk, use a cold water bath, with ice and keep the milk & lye solution as cold as possible, while adding the lye powder/crystals very very slowly and constantly stirring. It's very intimidating for a newbie, to say the least. And, yes, the smell and fumes can be off-putting.
Rest assured, if all goes well (and it doesn't always, BTW), the resulting soap will eventually be very nice soap, despite the initial smell and unexpected color. I have made a few goatmilk soaps (it's not my go-to soap, so I've really only made a few), but for the most part they have all been nice. I did have one fail, but that is another story.
The smell was gone after a decent cure. Fragrance can help, but time helps as well, when it comes to odor.
However, not everyone's nose is the same either, some of us can smell lard in soap no matter how long the soap cures. Some can smell olive oil in soap no matter how long the soap cures. Some never notice either. The sense of smell is also a personal thing, just like what our skin likes when it comes to a soap formula. So you may want to pay attention to the smells that linger for you and ask for feedback from others (family, close friends) about what they notice, but try not to use the power of suggestion, to see if others smell the same things.
The color of any goatmilk soap can be a sort of a beige-tan color if the milk got a bit on the warm side. With TD (titanium dioxide), it can be white, but most folks get a pure white GM soap (goats milk = GM) by freezing or refrigerating the soap as soon as it is in the mold for several days to prevent the soap from overheating. This also prevents the soap from gelling, which is what happens as the soap heats up via the natural chemical processes of mixing lye with fats. Gelling is not necessary, as both ways are fine for making good soap. Some prefer gelled soap and some prefer non-gelled soap. That is another topic altogether. Some GM soapmakers do gell all their soap, so that's not even cut-in-stone, either.
Well the evaporated milk does give some smell, hut not near enough. Will definitely look for a tried and true recipe. I haven't tried the bastille goatmilk yet so I don't know if I accomplished the goal as to feel. I am guessing that the coconut oil gave the lather and smoothness to the lard soap, I could be wrong. Good luck as well with your trial. Going to have to google KOH lye also!!
Now that you mention it I wouldn't mind having a soap that smells like gillete shaving cream. Hmmmm
Lard reportedly produces a very nice smooth lather, while coconut oil produces more bubbles. However, mixing oils can produce a more or less 'balanced' bar, depending on the proportions used. That takes a lot of practice and can depend somewhat on the what each person's individual skin feel. We don't all like the same feel.
Welcome to the journey! I am sure you will be fascinated by it for quite some time.
