Soap making with milk is popular because of milk’s natural moisturizing properties. For the past two weeks, the blog has been full of soapy projects made with milk and milk powders. Milk can replace up to 100% of the water in your cold process recipe. Because milk contains natural sugars that can burn when introduced to sodium hydroxide lye, it’s important to keep temperatures cool. My favorite way to prevent scorched lye milk is to freeze the milk in advance and add the lye slowly. For more information on creating the lye and milk mixture, check out the How to Add Lye to Milk for Cold Process Soap blog post.
Baby Soap: Buttermilk Bastille Baby Bar
What is bastille? Bastille is a term affectionately coined by soapers for soap that is made with a high percentage of olive oil. Castille is 100% olive oil soap and bastille is soap made with 70% (or more) olive oil but contains other oils or butters.
Castille on its own is not very bubbly but if you add a bit of coconut oil and buttermilk you can boost the bubbles a bit but keep the mildness of the high olive oil content. Buttermilk contains sugar which helps boost the bubbles as well.
I love this recipe. Its simple with just two oil ingredients (olive and coconut), is colored naturally by using carrot baby food (pureed carrots) and makes a great soap for baby or for those with sensitive skin. This recipe creates a super mild soap that still has a good lather.