I love creating soaps using different types of natural ingredients. I am a huge fan of goat milk soap personally, but I also have vegan friends and family. I have been itching to master non-dairy milk products for my soap. I know there is a huge and hot debate about whether rice, soy, oat, hemp and other fiber liquid derived products can be called milk. For my purposes I am going to call them milk.
This particular experiment I worked with hemp milk. I researched a lot and the risk of using milk in soap is just the same as using it in baking. If you didn't know the key to amazing cinnamon rolls is warmed but not scalded milk. In soapmaking, just like baking, that warmed but not scalded milk is the key.
Dissolving lye into a liquid creates heat and a lot of it! Freezing the hemp milk and using 1/4 water and 3/4 frozen hemp milk cubes in my lye mixture was just the right combination. It allowed me to fully dissolve the lye without raising the heat so high the hemp milk scalded or curdled. Success is a homogenous liquid with no chunks of lye or hemp milk.
Once I have the lye/milk/water creating the soapmaking is just the same as every other time. Warm my oils, blend well, add lye liquid, eo's or fo's and then design elements are implemented. For this first loaf of hemp milk soap I wanted to keep it simple and really observe the cure process without color or fragrance. Soaps can change color very significantly while they cure. Fresh white soap can be dark brown in a matter of days!
This hemp loaf has just a hint of green tint to it's buttery yellow color and texture. I wanted to give it a little boost so I added dried flowers to the top. The bar has a great hardness level so far and a wonderful consistent color. Even without a fragrance or essential oil the soap has a clean and pleasant soap smell. Follow me on Facebook or check back here for my next experiement with non-dairy milk! It's almost OAT MILK time!