Pure dairy soap

[Guest]

As others have suggested, I started a series of small experiments (using small quantities of ingredients), and here are the results.

I used heat processing (which is more convenient to me), and as expected, the milk starts to darken in color immediately after 50 degrees Celsius.

A foam rises above the solution, which after a lot of cooking, solidifies into a thin sheet (of soap).

Increasing the fat content by adding cream to the milk results in a thicker sheet, actually a soap bar.

During the processing, there are some unpleasant smells being developed, but they eventually go away.

However, the "soap" is rather greasy and fatty. At first, I thought I am not getting the lye quantity right, but after some more experimenting, it seems there is a problem with the "manufacturing process".

Since I have no experience with liquid soap (with a high content of water), but I believe the issue is that the fat floats above the liquid below, and a large part of the lye doesn't react with it. Probably if I had the patience to constantly stir, that would be prevented.

Some people have expressed concern that milk soap would be too caustic. But it seems to me quite the opposite happens: the milk fat takes only as much lye as it wants and raises above the lye.

By adding more lye and cooking it again, I was able to obtain a normal soap, with good cleaning properties and which doesn't only grease your hand. Another solution may be to separate the foam immediately after it forms and continue the processing with adding a carefully calculated amount of lye.

I am planning to experiment eventually with heavy cream and also powdered milk.

A much shorter story is the butter soap, which worked out first time, with no problems whatsoever, resulting in an ivory colored hard piece of soap.

The butter was from the supermarket, I heated it first and removed the water, after which processed it into soap as usually.

I have noticed no smells coming from the butter soap, except that I have used some old and rancid butter and the rancid smell remained.

 

[krissy]

A foam rises above the solution, which after a lot of cooking, solidifies into a thin sheet (of soap).
Increasing the fat content by adding cream to the milk results in a thicker sheet, actually a soap bar.

During the processing, there are some unpleasant smells being developed, but they eventually go away.

However, the "soap" is rather greasy and fatty. At first, I thought I am not getting the lye quantity right, but after some more experimenting, it seems there is a problem with the "manufacturing process".

Since I have no experience with liquid soap (with a high content of water), but I believe the issue is that the fat floats above the liquid below, and a large part of the lye doesn't react with it. Probably if I had the patience to constantly stir, that would be prevented.

Some people have expressed concern that milk soap would be too caustic. But it seems to me quite the opposite happens: the milk fat takes only as much lye as it wants and raises above the lye

^uuumm so this would be caustic sludge??

By adding more lye and cooking it again, I was able to obtain a normal soap, with good cleaning properties and which doesn't only grease your hand. did you zap test this??

Another solution may be to separate the foam immediately after it forms and continue the processing with adding a carefully calculated amount of lye.

I am planning to experiment eventually with heavy cream and also powdered milk.

A much shorter story is the butter soap, which worked out first time, with no problems whatsoever, resulting in an ivory colored hard piece of soap.

The butter was from the supermarket, I heated it first and removed the water, after which processed it into soap as usually.

I have noticed no smells coming from the butter soap, except that I have used some old and rancid butter and the rancid smell remained.

Soap is made by saponifying oils or fats. Goats milk contains around 4% fat, cows milk slightly under and coconut milk around 20%. So only that percentage of your milk will become soap - the rest will stay liquid. so it wont work.

Butter from cow's milk has butyric acid which would make any milk butter soap extremely stinky.

so in other words they were right?

 

[judymoody]

Thanks for your welcome and all suggestions.

And using other oils sounds like cheating. It's like you see a coconut oil shampoo at the supermarket and when you read the label, coconut oil is the least part of it.

That's because liquid shampoo is mostly water, followed by surfactants, emulsifiers, and other ingredients. If you tried to make a shampoo with coconut oil as the main ingredient it wouldn't clean your hair. You can make solid shampoo bars with no water, but coconut oil still wouldn't be the main ingredient. It can't be done.

 

[Guest]

so in other words they were right?

I am not trying to win an argument here, just to get help exploring something new.

Everybody agrees that the milkfat from milk can be turned into soap (yes, that small percentage of 3-5%).

It's funny this discussion got so conflictual, as long as there is consensus on the core idea above. But forums are often a convenient way to vent random frustrations.

^uuumm so this would be caustic sludge??

Yes, but less caustic than I expected. PH was 11.8.

did you zap test this??

I used a pH meter, it was 10.4.

Butter from cow's milk has butyric acid which would make any milk butter soap extremely stinky.

As I said, the butter was slightly rancid before, while the milk/cream soap has a pleasant caramel smell.

 

[krissy]

i am sorry, it sounds like i was being bratty, but i wasn't. i was being genuine but rushed and a bit cheeky. not intended to cause argument though i can see as how my words without tone could be taken that way.
experimenting is good and i would love to see actual pictures of the process you used and how you did it as you are braver than i would be with just milk and lye, and pics of 100% milk soap also...

 

[Guest]

There isn't much to show for the minute quantities I used (1-2 tablespoons).

I can show what is left, which are pieces, less than 1 inch in size. So here is the milk+cream and the butter soap.

http://i51.tinypic.com/n46rl5.jpg

 

[krissy]

if you intend to see what happens over time, i would love updates with pictures, an again i apologize if i sounded mean.

 

[Araseth]

It looks like a lovely bar of soap, I'd like to hear how it gets on too. Sounds like a lot of thought and care went into making that little bar congrats

 

[kelleyaynn]

pH 11.8 is still quite caustic, and too dangerous to use. pH 10.4 is too caustic as well.

 

[carebear]

the pH of soap can be as high as 11 or so (usually 9.5-10.5).

 

[carebear]

As others have suggested, I started a series of small experiments (using small quantities of ingredients), and here are the results.

I used heat processing (which is more convenient to me), and as expected, the milk starts to darken in color immediately after 50 degrees Celsius.

A foam rises above the solution, which after a lot of cooking, solidifies into a thin sheet (of soap).

Increasing the fat content by adding cream to the milk results in a thicker sheet, actually a soap bar.

During the processing, there are some unpleasant smells being developed, but they eventually go away.

However, the "soap" is rather greasy and fatty. At first, I thought I am not getting the lye quantity right, but after some more experimenting, it seems there is a problem with the "manufacturing process".

Since I have no experience with liquid soap (with a high content of water), but I believe the issue is that the fat floats above the liquid below, and a large part of the lye doesn't react with it. Probably if I had the patience to constantly stir, that would be prevented.

Some people have expressed concern that milk soap would be too caustic. But it seems to me quite the opposite happens: the milk fat takes only as much lye as it wants and raises above the lye.

By adding more lye and cooking it again, I was able to obtain a normal soap, with good cleaning properties and which doesn't only grease your hand. Another solution may be to separate the foam immediately after it forms and continue the processing with adding a carefully calculated amount of lye.

I am planning to experiment eventually with heavy cream and also powdered milk.

A much shorter story is the butter soap, which worked out first time, with no problems whatsoever, resulting in an ivory colored hard piece of soap.

The butter was from the supermarket, I heated it first and removed the water, after which processed it into soap as usually.

I have noticed no smells coming from the butter soap, except that I have used some old and rancid butter and the rancid smell remained.

you are actually using a different hot process method than is typically used here, which is why you can use an excess of lye. and water. (seems like a tremendous waste of milk, and time and energy - but that's just me)

the rancid smell takes some time to develop.

 

[Guest]

Are you using milk from Nubians or Nigerian Dwarf goats? While they typically have bf around 5%, it isn't constant nor all Nubians and NDs have that much bf%. You can't really know unless you are on DHI testing or can take your milk to a lab that does that kind of testing. Even then, it's variable day to day.

I sold a couple Saanens to a dairy that makes their own cheese and wins many awards. They were phasing out the Nubians because they were too tempermental and variable in their butterfat. What he found was that by feeding Black Oiled Sunflower Seeds, he could bring up and level the butterfat % thru their lactation on his Saanens and Alpines.

So, unless you know each day what the goats butterfat is, it is variable.