There are a few ways of painlessly including milks in your CP recipes. I wouldn't recommend using stearic acid with CP, but palm should pose no problem.
1. Powdered milks. Other folks around the forum have said they don't notice a difference between powdered vs. liquid milks when it comes to the finished bar - both perform nicely. Powdered milk can be added right to the melted oils or at trace - it's very easy!
2. Split lye method. Make a strong 50% lye solution with water, while holding back additional liquid milk to add at trace. It's easy to figure out the numbers you need with a
lye calculator.
Whatever you do, it's best to prevent gel in milk soaps. So just pop your soap into the fridge or freezer when you're done pouring and leave it alone for at least 24 hours before you take it out.
I actually intended to use powdered milk, that is what I have bought, and I bought it to be able to get an amount equal to a whole liter of milk in there, by mixing it stronger. And it is stearin I have, not stearic acid. I guess I wrote stearic acid, I mess a lot with the two. Stearin will split into stearic and palmitic acid, if I remember exactly what DeeAnna said (but I'm sure I remembered her name totally wrong
) But, just very few minutes ago, while googling the candle I have to find out more (yes I know, candle, not skin safe, but I will be the only user of this soap, and I take the chance. And I will buy skin safe stearin or stearic acid. A candle is just an emergency solution), I discovered that the candle I have, which is "Svanemerket", meaning Swan-marked, which it is a high standard for products based on consumer safety + environmental safety and sustainable. One of the criterias is that it can not contain any palm. So, the 100% stearin candle, without fragrance, color or nothing, is stearin from an unknown oil or fat. I have no idea other than it is not palm stearin. And then I can't know the saponification value. But I will superfat at least 10%, so I don't think it matters, since there is a safety buffer there already. If I could find palm oil somewhere, I would use that and not a candle. I will search for palm oil or palm alternatives locally and see what I can find.
Milk powder at trace, that sounds like a very good solution! Thank you. Yes, prevent gel, I guess that is the only way. I was thinking of using a 48% lye and 52% water (not 50/50 because I wanted a small buffer zone). And I hope to use only that, no other added water. That should prevent partial gel and prevent gel in general since less water means that it will gel at a higher temperature. I actually want little water and full gel. But that is not possible with milk. It will be like coffee instead of milk.
But I saw a lady in Australia making a Youtube video where she made a so called ghost swirl in a milk soap. She divided the batch in three, and had different lye concentrations in each. It did gel, but the parts with the highest water content did get much darker. That is the ghost swirl, making a swirl without any colorants, just swirled by water content (in case you did not already know). So I thought a maximum water reduction can help the milk soap to stay whiter.
I have seen on Youtube that putting soaps in fridge or freezer ends up with partial gel almost always. I guess I have seen the worst videos. I think that will happen when using full water, which gels a lot easier and at lower temperatures. I had not intended to put the soap in the fridge. But I will do as you suggested and actually keep it cold. Plus use water reduction to prevent partial gel. In theory, that should work great.
I wonder if also adding the honey at trace instead of in the beginning could keep the soap from overheating too much? I think, it is in the soap for a shorter time. And when it eventually gets in the soap, it will soon end up in the fridge anyway. So that might be helpful instead of adding honey to the oils.
) is it good to go ? Or do I need to rebatch ? The soap is soft to touch after 2 days.
