Why does bar soap make my skin feel terrible in comparison to liquid?

[AxtFarm]

As far as tester feedback, overall everyone likes the lotion except they think the fragrance needs to be slightly stronger so that is being bumped up a little for my next test batch.

 

[Quanta]

I saw the rosemary in this recipe (which im skeptical of)

I'm glad you're skeptical, because that is not a good recipe. There is no way that milk should be substituted for water at 100%. A small amount of water can be swapped out for milk, but there's no way I would make a lotion that used milk instead of water. That recipe also does not specify temperatures, and does not include heat-and-hold. The formulator also implies that ROE can be used instead of a preservative, and that isn't true. She also says that she personally uses a mix of ROE and preservative, with no indication (that I saw) of how much of each to make up that 1.2%. There are quite a few other red flags on that page (and on other pages of that same website) that indicate to me that these people are trying to figure out how to make skincare products by trial and error instead of just researching it using reputable sources.

I like what I'm seeing from this recipe and think using their preservative system would be good. The only thing that throws me is their use of goat milk powder and does it only pass the USP 51 test because they are using powder rather than raw goat milk? And these extra ingredients need certain PH so the recipe wants a 4.5ph which just makes it more complicated and costly.

I trust LotionCrafter. If they suggest a particular preservative system, it's a good one.

If you're going to use raw, fresh goat milk, I highly recommend you pasteurize your milk first. If you don't already have one, you can get a 2 gallon pasteurizer for about $400.

Citric acid is what you'd use to lower the pH, and it is literally one of the cheapest ingredients you can buy. Not to mention you'd use miniscule amounts of it, making it even cheaper. A one pound bag will last you a very, very long time. You would need to buy a pH meter (I do not trust paper strips at all) but those last a while. All you do is check the pH, mix in a few drops of citric acid solution (dissolve it in distilled water), and check the pH again. You can get pH meters that are specifically for thick, viscous liquids and semi-liquids so you don't even need to dilute the lotion in water first. I have this meter, but with the regular electrode:
https://www.amazon.com/Apera-Instru...=1&keywords=apera+spear&qid=1624407644&sr=8-4When my current electrode needs to be replaced, I'm getting this spear one. With the regular one, everything has to be diluted in water first and I'm tired of doing that. I only got the regular one because it cost less.

I think I will stick with the original recipe, but add the Disodium EDTA at 0.2%

Are you ok with sharing your recipe for feedback?

 

[AxtFarm]

I'm glad you're skeptical, because that is not a good recipe. There is no way that milk should be substituted for water at 100%. A small amount of water can be swapped out for milk, but there's no way I would make a lotion that used milk instead of water. That recipe also does not specify temperatures, and does not include heat-and-hold. The formulator also implies that ROE can be used instead of a preservative, and that isn't true. She also says that she personally uses a mix of ROE and preservative, with no indication (that I saw) of how much of each to make up that 1.2%. There are quite a few other red flags on that page (and on other pages of that same website) that indicate to me that these people are trying to figure out how to make skincare products by trial and error instead of just researching it using reputable sources.


I trust LotionCrafter. If they suggest a particular preservative system, it's a good one.

If you're going to use raw, fresh goat milk, I highly recommend you pasteurize your milk first. If you don't already have one, you can get a 2 gallon pasteurizer for about $400.

Citric acid is what you'd use to lower the pH, and it is literally one of the cheapest ingredients you can buy. Not to mention you'd use miniscule amounts of it, making it even cheaper. A one pound bag will last you a very, very long time. You would need to buy a pH meter (I do not trust paper strips at all) but those last a while. All you do is check the pH, mix in a few drops of citric acid solution (dissolve it in distilled water), and check the pH again. You can get pH meters that are specifically for thick, viscous liquids and semi-liquids so you don't even need to dilute the lotion in water first. I have this meter, but with the regular electrode:
https://www.amazon.com/Apera-Instru...=1&keywords=apera+spear&qid=1624407644&sr=8-4When my current electrode needs to be replaced, I'm getting this spear one. With the regular one, everything has to be diluted in water first and I'm tired of doing that. I only got the regular one because it cost less.


Are you ok with sharing your recipe for feedback?

 

[DeeAnna]

I saw the rosemary in this recipe (which im skeptical of)...

I would be skeptical too. The author doesn't really understand what they're doing.

Any self-respecting cosmetic chemist would have major problems with that much goat milk in a lotion. No matter what preservative system you choose to use, that's waaaaay too much "bug food". No preservative can function well in this situation.

Have you heard of the mouse explosion in Australia? The explosion is being driven by a drought that is driving mice to farms where there is food such as hay and grain crops. Farmers are desperately trying to trap and otherwise kill the mice, but even though the farmers kill thousands of mice per day, the mice are continuing to overwhelm the land. As long as there is food, the mice will keep breeding in extraordinary numbers.

A lotion with goat milk is like one of those Australian farms. The preservative is the mouse traps the farmer is using. The microbes are the mice. As long as you can control the food to a minimum, a preservative can do a decent job of killing the few stray microbes that happen to be in the lotion. A preservative cannot control the growth of microbes as long as there is an abundance of food.

An effective preservative system is only one leg of a three-legged stool. The other two legs are minimal food sources and sanitary manufacturing practices.

 

[AxtFarm]

I would be skeptical too. The author doesn't really understand what they're doing.

Any self-respecting cosmetic chemist would have major problems with that much goat milk in a lotion. No matter what preservative system you choose to use, that's waaaaay too much "bug food". No preservative can function well in this situation.

Have you heard of the mouse explosion in Australia? The explosion is being driven by a drought that is driving mice to farms where there is food such as hay and grain crops. Farmers are desperately trying to trap and otherwise kill the mice, but even though the farmers kill thousands of mice per day, the mice are continuing to overwhelm the land. As long as there is food, the mice will keep breeding in extraordinary numbers.

A lotion with goat milk is like one of those Australian farms. The preservative is the mouse traps the farmer is using. The microbes are the mice. As long as you can control the food to a minimum, a preservative can do a decent job of killing the few stray microbes that happen to be in the lotion. A preservative cannot control the growth of microbes as long as there is an abundance of food.

An effective preservative system is only one leg of a three-legged stool. The other two legs are minimal food sources and sanitary manufacturing practices.

So is 50/50 water to milk acceptable or should it be 60/40 or 75/25?

Is Phenopin at 1% + Disodium EDTA sufficient or do I double up and do Phenopin at 1% and Germaben II at 1% + Disodium EDTA or should I use something else in conjunction with the Phenopin & Disodium EDTA?

 

[amd]

So is 50/50 water to milk acceptable or should it be 60/40 or 75/25?

My quick answer is to look at the overall % of the recipe rather than a ratio water to milk.
I noticed the lotion crafter recipe says this regarding their GM powder:

So I would be inclined to use 9% goat milk in a recipe with the proper preservatives as a guideline. But that's just how I'm looking at it, not having done a lot of research with using GM in lotions.

 

[Quanta]

My quick answer is to look at the overall % of the recipe rather than a ratio water to milk.
I noticed the lotion crafter recipe says this regarding their GM powder:
View attachment 58755
So I would be inclined to use 9% goat milk in a recipe with the proper preservatives as a guideline. But that's just how I'm looking at it, not having done a lot of research with using GM in lotions.

If @AxtFarm is going to be using the goat milk raw, I would suggest bumping that down to maybe 2% of the total formula. I would only go as high as 9% if it's pasteurized. Even 9% might be a bit high for milk that hasn't been powdered. Powdered milk has less potential for microbial contamination, which is the whole point of powdered milk. It keeps much longer than fresh milk.

 

[AxtFarm]

If @AxtFarm is going to be using the goat milk raw, I would suggest bumping that down to maybe 2% of the total formula. I would only go as high as 9% if it's pasteurized. Even 9% might be a bit high for milk that hasn't been powdered. Powdered milk has less potential for microbial contamination, which is the whole point of powdered milk. It keeps much longer than fresh milk.

Wouldn't you lose all the benefits of "goat milk lotion" if there is hardly any milk in it?

 

[Quanta]

Wouldn't you lose all the benefits of "goat milk lotion" if there is hardly any milk in it?

You would lose far more benefits if it was full of bacteria and therefore unusable.

Here's an experiment. Get three clean jars and put into one of them some fresh milk. In the second, mix half milk and half distilled water. In the third, mix 2% fresh milk and 97% water. In each, add 1% Phenonip. Which do you think will smell the best a week later?

Milk as a lotion ingredient is mostly for label appeal. It doesn't actually do much. The oils, butters, and fats are the stuff that make lotion what it is. "Whole" milk is only somewhere around 4% fat. Even if your lotion was 100% milk with nothing else added, you can't get the fat content above 4%. So it's not a terribly effective lotion on its own. So, it stands to reason, it's all the other stuff - Shea butter, avocado oil, etc. that make your lotion moisturizing.

 

[AxtFarm]

You would lose far more benefits if it was full of bacteria and therefore unusable.

Here's an experiment. Get three clean jars and put into one of them some fresh milk. In the second, mix half milk and half distilled water. In the third, mix 2% fresh milk and 97% water. In each, add 1% Phenonip. Which do you think will smell the best a week later?

Milk as a lotion ingredient is mostly for label appeal. It doesn't actually do much. The oils, butters, and fats are the stuff that make lotion what it is. "Whole" milk is only somewhere around 4% fat. Even if your lotion was 100% milk with nothing else added, you can't get the fat content above 4%. So it's not a terribly effective lotion on its own. So, it stands to reason, it's all the other stuff - Shea butter, avocado oil, etc. that make your lotion moisturizing.

Is that equally true about goat milk soap as just being for label appeal and not terribly effective for the soap?


In reality, if the difference between water and milk makes almost no difference to the final products feel, or benefits (eczema for example which milk is supposedly really good for) then the only thing that really matters is that in the event that I needed or wanted to list the ingredients it would go: Water, Milk, x, y ,z. So as long as milk is above 3.4 oz it would be 2nd on my ingredients list. Unless I dehydrated it and then it drops down the list.

3.5oz milk would make it 8% of total weight

 

[Quanta]

Is that equally true about goat milk soap as just being for label appeal and not terribly effective for the soap?


In reality, if the difference between water and milk makes almost no difference to the final products feel, or benefits (eczema for example which milk is supposedly really good for) then the only thing that really matters is that in the event that I needed or wanted to list the ingredients it would go: Water, Milk, x, y ,z. So as long as milk is above 3.4 oz it would be 2nd on my ingredients list. Unless I dehydrated it and then it drops down the list.

3.5oz milk would make it 8% of total weight

Milk in soap adds sugar, which makes the lather better. Any sugar added to soap will make the lather better, and there are many things that can be added which have enough sugar to have this effect. The fat in milk gets saponified with the rest of the oils and doesn't necessarily make the soap more moisturizing.

 

[AxtFarm]

I will make another test batch this weekend taking the milk down to 8% and see how the final product feels in comparison to the original.

With ideal preservation results what kind of shelf life am I looking at?

 

[earlene]

Is that equally true about goat milk soap as just being for label appeal and not terribly effective for the soap?


In reality, if the difference between water and milk makes almost no difference to the final products feel, or benefits (eczema for example which milk is supposedly really good for) then the only thing that really matters is that in the event that I needed or wanted to list the ingredients it would go: Water, Milk, x, y ,z. So as long as milk is above 3.4 oz it would be 2nd on my ingredients list. Unless I dehydrated it and then it drops down the list.

3.5oz milk would make it 8% of total weight

Besides helping with bubbles, and for some a more luxurious feel (although that could be subjective), milk in soap doesn't stay on the skin long enough to do anything beneficial anyway. PLUS it's composition probably changes a lot more when in the presence of lye than it would in a lotion.

But I don't quite understand why the percentage of GM would go down when it is powdered? Couldn't it actually go up? Water is one of the ingredients in GM, right? So if you don't reconstitute powdered GM, but mix it with the other liquids in your recipe, might it not be at a higher percentage that it would have been if it were a liquid? It's just a thought; I don't really know for sure if that would be the case. And I don't make lotion, so cannot really say if the powder would mix well with the other ingredients anyway.

 

[AxtFarm]

The recipe by lotion crafter linked several posts up uses powdered milk, but I was just saying from an ingredient weight it would be lower on the list. I'm not sure what dictates the order of the list other than the higher on the list it is the more of it is in the recipe.


as far as pasteurizing vs dehydrating I see us buying a $100 dehydrator way before spending $500+ on a pasteurizer. Plus, if we have to dehydrate the milk then that just opens the door to lip balm.

 

[Quanta]

as far as pasteurizing vs dehydrating I see us buying a $100 dehydrator way before spending $500+ on a pasteurizer. Plus, if we have to dehydrate the milk then that just opens the door to lip balm.

It's not really a matter of pasteurizing vs. dehydrating. It's a matter of either pasteurizing alone, or pasteurizing and dehydrating. I would not ever recommend a dehydrator of the kind used for fruit and such, unless you can get the temperature up high enough to keep the milk from spoiling during the process. Remember, milk spoils in a wider range of temperatures than the fruits and veggies normally dried in those things. If you're going to dehydrate the milk in that kind of dehydrator, I think you'll end up introducing more microbes than if you pasteurize it and use it right away. When I mentioned powdered milk being less likely to contaminate formulations, it's because commercially produced powdered milk is dried in very specialized equipment that greatly reduces microbial contamination (it keeps the milk hot and dries it very quickly by spraying it in small droplets in a heated chamber), and pasteurization is part of the process.

For now, I would recommend you scald the milk before using it. Get it up to at least 161°F for at least 15 seconds, and then pour it into a sanitized non-glass bowl in an ice water bath to cool it quickly. That's about as close to pasteurization as you'll be able to get without the proper equipment. Make sure you sanitize everything. I would use StarSan but you can use ethyl alcohol diluted to 70% in distilled water.

 

[AxtFarm]

It's not really a matter of pasteurizing vs. dehydrating. It's a matter of either pasteurizing alone, or pasteurizing and dehydrating. I would not ever recommend a dehydrator of the kind used for fruit and such, unless you can get the temperature up high enough to keep the milk from spoiling during the process. Remember, milk spoils in a wider range of temperatures than the fruits and veggies normally dried in those things. If you're going to dehydrate the milk in that kind of dehydrator, I think you'll end up introducing more microbes than if you pasteurize it and use it right away. When I mentioned powdered milk being less likely to contaminate formulations, it's because commercially produced powdered milk is dried in very specialized equipment that greatly reduces microbial contamination (it keeps the milk hot and dries it very quickly by spraying it in small droplets in a heated chamber), and pasteurization is part of the process.

For now, I would recommend you scald the milk before using it. Get it up to at least 161°F for at least 15 seconds, and then pour it into a sanitized non-glass bowl in an ice water bath to cool it quickly. That's about as close to pasteurization as you'll be able to get without the proper equipment. Make sure you sanitize everything. I would use StarSan but you can use ethyl alcohol diluted to 70% in distilled water.

I was using water in bleach to sanitize everything. I suppose starsan is better?

Thanks for the advice for sorta pasteurizing. I will try that this weekend.

 

[Quanta]

I was using water in bleach to sanitize everything. I suppose starsan is better?

Thanks for the advice for sorta pasteurizing. I will try that this weekend.

Bleach leaves a residue that has to be rinsed off... with non-sanitized water. StarSan is used on equipment for making beer, wine, and cheese and so it is totally safe. Leave it in the solution for 3 minutes, and then take it out and let it air-dry without rinsing.

Alcohol works faster than either and dries off faster, too, with no residue. StarSan and bleach both have limitations as far as what kind of surfaces they can be used on, however.

 

[AxtFarm]

Bleach leaves a residue that has to be rinsed off... with non-sanitized water. StarSan is used on equipment for making beer, wine, and cheese and so it is totally safe. Leave it in the solution for 3 minutes, and then take it out and let it air-dry without rinsing.

Alcohol works faster than either and dries off faster, too, with no residue. StarSan and bleach both have limitations as far as what kind of surfaces they can be used on, however.

I ordered the starsan, but it won't arrive till next week. I don't have ethyl alcohol, but I do have 99% Isopropyl alcohol.

 

[Quanta]

I ordered the starsan, but it won't arrive till next week. I don't have ethyl alcohol, but I do have 99% Isopropyl alcohol.

You can use that. Mix it with water at 70% alcohol to 30% distilled water. It is important to mix it with water first.

 

[AAShillito]

AxtFarm how's the soaping going?