GOATS MILK SOAP FAQS
Goats Milk Soap Arizona
We run into people all the time who ask questions about goat milk and soap and how the whole thing works and why goat milk soap is any different than any other soap. Below are some of those most common conversations in a Q & A form.
How do we make our soap?
We make our soap in small batches by hand in our home. It's a very non-commerical-made-with-love-process. But it isn't all love, it's science too. Soap is the result of a chemical process when you mix fats with sodium hydroxide. I know it sounds scary but it's really not. There is no such thing as soap without sodium hydroxide (NaOH). Without the NaOH you've got yourself a bar of fat. Now that might feel good on chapped skin, but it won't clean you up. The process of soap making is actually very simple. We melt our oils (coconut, olive and castor) together, mix our NaOH with our amazing goat milk, mix our oils and goat milk mixture together, and add those wonderful essential oils and other additives like oatmeal or selected fragrances to make each batch of soap unique. Then we pour our soap mixture into a mold to harden, cut our soap into bars and place them in our soap room to cure for a month before selling and using them.
What are the benefits to using goat's milk?
Where to start?! There are so many benefits I'll just have to pick a couple here. The use of goat milk as a skin beautifier has historically been a favorite of the wealthy and royal folks of the world. Cleopatra is said to have bathed in goat milk to pamper her skin. That said, the benefits of goat milk soap is not just folklore.
Goat milk contains alpha hydroxyl acids naturally. Alpha hydroxyl acids are often advertised in commercial skin products as age-defyers and wrinkle-enders. Commercial soap and skin products with alpha-hydroxy acids are full of chemicals and harsh agents that work to acheive the age-defying claims they advertise. Cleaning your skin with goat milk soap is a very natural way to use a naturally occuring alpha hydroxy acid to aid in keeping your skin looking young!
Additionally the fats in goat milk that make it so creamy turn out to have great anti-inflammatory properties. This is why goat milk soap is so soothing to the skin.
One more (I could go on and on). Goat milk is full of essential nutrients and vitamins that your skin will absorb such as: vitamin D, C, B1, B6, B12, E and selenium.
For more information about the benefits of goat milk on the skin the following articles are great: Keeping Skin Youthful with Goat's Milk, Benefits of Goat's Milk Acknowledged by the Beauty Industry.
Do we make custom orders?
Yes! If you contact us through our contact page we will be happy to fill your custom order to the best of our ability. There are endless options and varieties of essential oils, fragrances and additives that can make each batch of soap unique. If you have a soap you would like us to make please specify the exact fragrances, essential oils and/or other additives you'd like to see in the soap. If you have just a general idea of a soap you would like but aren't sure about what would go in it, please email us your idea and we'll be glad to create a bar of soap that pleases you! Custom orders must be ordered by loaf not by bar. A loaf of soap contains 10 bars. Also, the pricing on the custom ordered loaves will vary depending on the requested fragrance/essential oils/additives, etc.
How much goat's milk is in each bar of soap?
Making soap requires liquid (usually water) to be mixed with the NaOH before adding it to the oils to begin the saponification process. Goat milk soaps use goat milk rather than water. As you can imagine, there can't be large quantities of liquid in a bar of soap if you want it to be a bar and not a liquid. So the fact that there are almost 13 oz. of goat milk in every loaf of our soaps may seem like it's not that much. And it's not comparatively. The oils are the bulk of the soap. But that small amount of goat milk adds a powerful skin nourishing ingredient to every bar of our soaps! When soaps are made with water almost all the water is evaporated in the curing process. But with goat milk soaps, the water in the goat milk evaporates and the vitamins and nutrients such as selenium, alphy hydroxyl acids and skin softening fats do not! Those are the "secret" ingredients that stay in the soap and are absorped by the skin and cause your skin to feel so soft and supple after each washing.
Do you guarantee the benefits of your soap?
Sheila is a registered nurse, a mom and a wife who has sought to provide a nourishing bar of soap for her family and others. But she isn't a doctor. She doesn't give medical advice or cosmetic industry promises. So we don't gaurantee that any specific benefit of using our goat milk soaps will be experienced. We just know that our soaps have been so great for us and many others who have used them. We have full confidence that you will love and feel the benefits of using our goat milk soap just like we do!
Why are most of your soaps some shade of brown?
One of our commitments in making goat milk soap is to keep it as simple, pure and natural as possible. Dyes make pretty colors but they can also cause skin irritations to some folks. There are no dyes in any of our soaps and therefore the natural process of turning the olive, coconut, castor oil and goat milk fats into soap creates a creamy shade of tan or off-white and sometimes even a dark brown depending on the essential oils or fragrances used. Some of our soaps are various colors, but the color is acheived strictly through natural methods such as using ultramarines, minerals, clays and foods such as pumpkin and carrot.
How big are your soaps?
All our bar soaps are hand cut and therefore vary slightly in weight and shape. We make our bars in a 10 inch loaf mold and cut them approximately 1 inch thick. But because they are hand cut there is some variance from bar to bar. We could buy a machine to cut precise, duplicate bars of soap, but that just doesn't feel like us. Goats Make Soap Co. makes hand-cut, artisan bars of original goat milk soaps. We like it that way. We do weigh our bars to make sure they are between 4.5 and 5.5 oz. per bar.