Oatmeal Lavender Goat milk Soap

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You guys, I love making soap. There is just something so fulfilling about taking a bunch of ingredients that range from dangerous (lye), greasy – the kind of thing you use soap to clean! (oil), and kind of random, and making a good smelling, skin nourishing bar of soap out of it.

I remember the first time I used goat milk soap to wash my hands. Up until then, I had used some run of the mill soap like Ivory or something, which is really a detergent bar that leaves your hands kind of dry. I mean, try using ivory to soap up your legs for shaving! Doesn’t work, because it doesn’t attract moisture.

So imagine my shock when I grab that goat milk soap for the first time, wash my hands, and – what in the world?! My hands were soft when I was done!

That was about 8 years ago, and I kid you not – I haven’t bought another kind of soap since.

Goat milk attracts moisture to the skin, and helps soften it.

It’s. So. Cool!

In this bar of soap, we also have oatmeal, which is famous for correcting the ph of itchy, inflamed skin, and also helps moisturize and gently cleanse. My mom used to make us take oatmeal baths when we got poison ivy as kids.

So goat milk soap with oatmeal is kind of a match made in heaven.

The oatmeal gives it the same kind of exfoliating quality of the coffee scrub soap as well.

And of course, we added lavender, the swiss army knife of essential oils to not only make this soap smell amazing, but to lend its antiseptic, anti-fungal, anti-inflammatory, benefits as well. Lavender helps support the skin agains acne, wrinkles, psoriasis, and other inflammatory conditions.

These are all the reasons why I wanted to share this oatmeal lavender goat milk soap with you – because you’ll love it!

Ingredients:

2 oz. lye
6 oz. ice cold goat milk
4 oz. coconut oil
4 oz. olive oil
8 oz. vegetable or canola oil
1 cup oatmeal (preferably colloidal oatmeal but any oatmeal will do)
1/2 oz. lavender essential oil

Instructions:

Measure out your ingredients carefully. I highly recommend not opening your lye until you’re ready to measure, and immediately mix it in with your goat milk – especially if you live in a humid area where your lye will absorb moisture and stick to, or lump up in your measuring device.
In a well ventilated place – preferably outside, pour goat milk into a large, non-reactive bowl – either glass or high-quality stainless steel.
sprinkle lye granules on top of milk, and stir with a non-reactive spoon or spatula until lye is dissolved.
Let mixture site and cool until it reaches about 100 degrees.
In the mean time, melt oil, and cool to 100 degrees. I like to use an instant infrared thermometer, but a candy thermometer will work as well.
When the temperatures match, gently pour the oil into the milk/lye mixture.
Mix with an immersion blender for 5-15 minutes until your soap mixture reaches a trace. If you’re not sure what a trace is, read this article with descriptive pictures.
Stir in oatmeal and essential oils and mix well.
Pour soap mixture into a prepared mold. The mold used for the soap in these pictures was a plastic half-log mold from Hobby Lobby, making six, five ounce bars.
Carefully move your full mold to a place where it can sit undisturbed for at least 24 hours.
Cover with a cardboard or plastic box, and then with a towel or blanket to insulate.
After 24-48 hours, you can remove your soap from the molds
Place soap back in a place where it won’t be disturbed, and let cure for at least three weeks before using to complete the saponification process, sweat, and become harder.

NOTES

The colder your fresh goat milk is when you add it to the lye, the whiter your soap will be, canned goat milk, which I used in the batch pictured, will always result in caramel-colored soap.