I started making soap this past fall, and since then I’ve enjoyed researching recipes, ingredients and techniques. I love experimenting, and when my first soaping mishap turned out to be fixable, I realized making a mistake wasn’t that big of deal – so why not try some new things? After taking a break over the holidays, I decided that one of my first crafting tasks for 2013 would be a new soap recipe. I wanted to experiment with ingredients I’ve never used before, so I worked on creating a milk-based soap.
Milk soaps are pretty common and many soapers choose to use goat’s milk. Me, being the impulsive late night soaper that I am, decided to get this recipe going at about 11pm when stores were no longer open. Needless to say, I didn’t have any goat’s milk on hand. (Now that I’m using milk in soap recipes, that will be a new staple in my pantry). But what did I have? Yup, a big gallon of regular cow’s milk. After reading up on milk soap recipes quite a bit, I determined that my good ‘ol cow’s milk would do the trick. (For more information on using milk in soaps, click here.)
The rest of my recipe was inspired by, you guessed it, the contents of my pantry. I thought walnuts and honey sounded good, so why not throw those in? I usually have a number of different oils on hand since I’ve gotten into soap making, but you can always change up these oils according to what you have available. To learn about the properties of different oils and how to create recipes, use Tiffany’s instructions here.
This recipe doesn’t use any fragrance or essential oils but the honey and walnut combination makes it smell amazing. The milk base makes for an extra moisturizing soap that’s perfect for the winter or for anyone with dry skin.
What ingredients in your pantry could be inspiration for a soap recipe?
Honey-Walnut Milk Soap
Makes about 16 4 ounce bars of soap
For the full cold process soap making instructions, check out Tiffany’s beginner’s soap making tutorial.
Base Oils
5 oz. canola oil
15 oz. coconut oil
15 oz. olive oil
5 oz. safflower oil
5 oz. sunflower oil
Lye Solution
12.6 oz. milk, frozen to a slushy state
6.4 oz. lye
When making soap with milk, it’s imperative that your milk is at a frozen slushy state when you mix it with the lye, otherwise the milk will burn. When creating your lye solution, very slowly mix the lye, a small amount at a time, into the frozen milk slush. Complete the rest of the recipe as you normally would.
Additives
Add 3 tablespoons of honey right before mixture reaches trace. Mix in 3 ounces of finely ground walnuts at trace.
As always, remember to let your soaps cure for 4-6 weeks before using or gifting!
The soap sounds amazing and your pictures are absolutely GORGEOUS!
Thanks! So glad you like the post!
Soap looks fantastic, iv never used walnuts before, did it give a good texture and was it exfoliating?
Thanks! This was the first time I’ve used walnuts. I ground them extremely finely for a light exfoliating texture, but you could always just grind them a little more coarsely if you want more exfoliation. Hope that answers your question!
That soap looks fabulous!! Almost like it should be served as dessert good….wow, I’ll definitley have to try this recipe
)
Thanks! Glad you liked the post!
Great recipe! These soaps look so beautiful!! Great giftie idea!!
Soaps definitely do make a great gift idea. Glad you liked the recipe!
Love it! Another recipe I want to try.
Thanks! We’d love to hear what you think if you try it!
I have huge soap obsession and never even considered making my own…yours sounds devine! Thanks for the fabulous tutorial! Pinning!
Thanks! I love making soap. Homemade soaps are a much more natural product for your skin and they make great gifts. Thanks for pinning!
awesome!! I love the simplicity of this recipe – sounds great!!
Thanks! Glad you liked it!
Looks great! Where did you get the lye?
Thanks! I get my lye from The Lye Guy: http://www.thelyeguy.com/store.php?crn=211. Hope that helps!
It looks really wonderful! I was just wondering the other day about the possibility of walnuts in soap because I also love eating them. Thanks for the tutorial, I am definately trying this one! Marieke
Thanks! This is the first time I tried walnuts in soap and I really liked it. I hope you do, too!
Sounds great! Just want to put in another vote for the soap mold tutorial! I’m still using a shoe box…
Thanks! And thanks for the soap mold vote! Hopefully we can get that up for you, although I have to say that using a shoe box is quite genius.
Maybe a weird question, but, why do we need to wear all this protection when making soap? I mean, if we need all this protection, should we be putting this stuff on our skin? Thanks!
That’s a great question! It all has to do with the chemical reaction (called saponification) that take place when making soap. Saponification is the chemical reaction between fats, lye and water that produces the substance we call soap. It takes about 2 days for saponification to complete (but we suggest waiting 4-6 before using your soap simply to give the soap time to harden up so it doesn’t fall apart when you use it). Before this chemical process is complete, especially when you’re mixing lye, water and fats, the lye (sodium hydroxide) is caustic and can cause serious burns if touched (hence the protection required). When the lye is mixed with water, the water rapidly heats up and can also cause burns. However, when the lye is finally mixed with the fats in the soap making process, saponification begins to take place. That chemical reaction that started with fats and lye/liquid mixture results in two other substances that are safe to be used on your skin: soap and glycerin. There is no longer any actual lye in the final soap product. Click here to check out a short article on saponification.
I hope that answers your question! Thanks for your feedback!