Homemade Blender Milk Soap

For this soap, you can use fancy molds or simply pour soap into a bread pan and cut it to the size of bars you want. Love how versatile and forgiving this recipe is. It is great for redheaded children, babies and other people with sensitive skin. 

Last weekend, in the midst of visiting my sister, she watched my kids so I could learn to make milk soap in blender at my step-grandmother's house (Regina). I was pleased to learn it was actually a very simple process. I really like milk soap because it makes your skin feel great. We use it for hands, face and body. I thought I'd post about it before I forgot the instructions. 

Here are the ingredients:

6 oz. frozen milk (just freeze in ice cube trays)

4 Tbl lye granules

16 oz of shortening, lard, or tallow 

I took pictures of Regina making the first batch. 

First she measured 6 oz of frozen milk cubes (need to use frozen because the lye will burn the milk and make it look and smell bad) into a stainless steel milk shake cup. You can use any stainless steel item, as long as you can easily pour it into a blender. She stuck the bottom down into the drain for stability. Next she measured out 4 Tbl lye granules into the cup. Unlike her, I will be using gloves! You do not want to get lye on your skin. Ouch!

Using an old wooden spoon, she kept poking and stirring the lye and milk so that it wouldn't create "hot spots" in the milk as it melted, which kept it from burning. While the frozen milk was melting, we measured out 16 oz. of shortening and just barely melted it (don't get it too hot).She poured the melted shortening into the blender and then poured the melted milk and lye mixture over that. She used an old glass blender she has bought at a yard sale.She immediately pulse blended about 5 times, checked, blended a couple more times until it got to the "trace stage". That means it is just starting to thicken up or set up. This is where you add the essential oils, oatmeal or whatever you wish. We just added probably 1 tsp of peppermint oil. This picture was taken soon after trace, after we had added the peppermint oil and it was really starting to get thick. You don't want it any thicker than this when you are scraping it out of the blender. We pulse blended it a couple more times and then quickly scraped it out of the blender into a plastic lined bread pan. We smoothed the top down with a knife. She said she would let it set a few days and then cut it. It'll be ready to use a month from now. I can't wait to see how it turned out. Talk about cheap and easy! This isn't fancy soap, although you can make it look fancy using soap molds. It makes my skin feel great. Regina wasn't super precise in her measurements, but it all seemed to turn out well. It is a very forgiving recipe.

Regina also uses tallow (beef fat) or lard with this same recipe. Watch it though, because different fats set up quicker. I think tallow sets up very quickly. At first I wasn't thrilled that we were using shortening, but why not? It isn't like we're ingesting it. Regina puts her animal fats in the crockpot. She lets it render all day and then puts it in the fridge and pops out a big chunk of fat, wipes off the underside, and there is fat already to make soap. I put my fat in the crock pot, let it render for about 24 hours on low and then strain it through a cheese cloth into a plastic bucket that I can freeze. Great way to use up more of the animal. 

Anyway, after she made a batch, she let me make one, too, and it looked like it turned out good. I've received many compliments on my soap. It isn't pretty or fancy, but it cleans well and moisturizes at the same time. My husband uses it instead of shampoo and I use it in place of shave gel. If any of you do try this recipe, please leave a comment and let me know how it turned out. 

God Bless,

Jackie

P.S. I've made this recipe many times now and sometimes I can't get it to go to trace, but I pour it into molds anyway, and let it sit a month and it still works! This really IS the most forgiving soap recipe. I've even used up to two TBL of lye less for this recipe for relatives who have super sensitive skin and it make take a bit longer to dry out and never goes to trace, but it still turns out great.