Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Why Make Your Own Soap?
Unfortunately, when it comes to commercial soap making, sturdiness is more valuable and tallow
more readily attainable than more exotic oils. So artificial detergents, moisturizers, and lathering
agents are likely to be added. And it is not usually just one. If you include a harsh detergent, you
have to include a moisturizer. If you include a moisturizer, you need to make sure it lathers well.
To make it lather well, you might need to make sure it breaks down hard water. On and on you go
until the ingredients list is long and filled with what might as well be another language.
Those ingredients are more than just words. Your skin is the largest organ of your body, covering
upward of 8 to 10 square feet and comprising as much as 15 percent of your body weight. Now,
think about what you put on your skin. What's more, is there anything you apply to your skin
more thoroughly than soap? You wouldn't rub pesticides onto your liver. Or seep preservatives into
your lungs. Your skin should get the same level of care.
To top it all off, imagine all of those toxins rinsing right off of your body, down the drain, and
ultimately back into your drinking water and the earth in general. Nothing that we do exists in a
bubble. The cumulative effects of millions of people rinsing carcinogens, pesticides, formaldehyde,
and who knows what else down their drains will come back to haunt us.
Making Goat's Milk Soap
Goat's milk soap is a great way to use up the excess milk from your backyard farm, but there are
a few extra things you'll need on hand to make it. You'll need a scale to measure your ingredients
precisely, a large stainless-steel pot that will not corrode from the lye, an immersion blender, a
thermometer, and a couple hard plastic spoons.
thOrny MatterS
Label your pots, blender, and any other equipment that you'll be using for soap making with a permanent
marker so it doesn't get mixed up with any dishes or other utensils used for preparing food.
Other items that do not need to be for soap only are gloves and protective eyewear, as well as a
mixing bowl for your herb and oil additions. Finally, you will need something to mold the soap in
and cover it as it sets. A cardboard box will work, though you can buy molds at craft stores.
Follow a recipe closely at first, and over time you will become familiar enough with the ratios of
oil combinations to lye, on top of the addition of milk and any other ingredients you would like to
add, to create your own concoction.
Measuring your ingredients perfectly is vital to good soap. With imbalanced ratios of oil and lye,
the soap could be too harsh or too heavy. A good kitchen scale makes all the difference—make
sure you know how to use it before you get started. You need a measuring container on the scale,
