…I’m popping my head out of the dark alleyway I’ve been lurking and learning in for ~4 years to say hi and ask a question to which I can’t find an answer (already posted and pending approval in the lye soap forum, hopefully in the right place).
I got into soapmaking as a way to use excess goat milk from my small herd of Nigerian Dwarf goats, and make something useful instead of buying it. Yes, I quickly realized the irony of my attempted frugality; the milk replaces a fraction of the ingredients— and the cheapest one by far, of course!
Oh well, by the time I figured that out, it was too late— I was hooked! My family loves the soap, and making it is my form of selfcare!
This is hands down my favorite soaping resource, and where I go first for ideas and advice. This group has provided inspiration for new recipes to try (looking at you, @Zany, made my first ZNSB a few weeks ago!) and use as starting points for formulating new recipes, not to mention saved me from myself several times with good best practice (don’t cure on metal racks, don’t mix lye in Pyrex, back away from the stick blender, etc.…).
Anyway, here I am!
I got into soapmaking as a way to use excess goat milk from my small herd of Nigerian Dwarf goats, and make something useful instead of buying it. Yes, I quickly realized the irony of my attempted frugality; the milk replaces a fraction of the ingredients— and the cheapest one by far, of course!
Oh well, by the time I figured that out, it was too late— I was hooked! My family loves the soap, and making it is my form of selfcare!This is hands down my favorite soaping resource, and where I go first for ideas and advice. This group has provided inspiration for new recipes to try (looking at you, @Zany, made my first ZNSB a few weeks ago!) and use as starting points for formulating new recipes, not to mention saved me from myself several times with good best practice (don’t cure on metal racks, don’t mix lye in Pyrex, back away from the stick blender, etc.…).
Anyway, here I am!
And when you're looking at 8 GALLONS of extra milk to use up, that's somewhere in the neighborhood of 130 bars of soap! It's like making mayonnaise to use extra eggs. Just how much mayonnaise can a person use, at one egg per cup of mayonnaise?!
