Melissa's Toolkit: Buttermilk & Goat's Milk

Ingredients: Buttermilk & Goat's Milk

​As a soapmaker, I love to explore different liquid ingredients that add benefits to my soaps. My exploring has led me to cider, wine, beer, tea, and milk. As you know from our Coconut Milk blog, milks can add skin-softening goodness to soap. Two of our favorite milks are buttermilk and goat’s milk. Both are deliciously rich and packed with healthy nutrients for your skin.

Buttermilk has a few natural properties that make it a luxurious choice for those looking to keep their skin youthful and bright. High in lactic acid, buttermilk can gently exfoliate dead skin cells to brighten and soften the skin. It also rids the skin of impurities and gives the skin a natural glow. Naturally astringent, buttermilk helps to tighten the skin, causing it to look younger. Oh, did I mention how it makes the skin feel? Delightfully soft!​
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Even though buttermilk has “butter” in its name, it really is low in calories and fat! What is it? It is the slightly sour liquid leftover when you churn butter from cream.

Goat’s milk is another milk that adds skin-loving benefits to a product. High in vitamins and minerals, goat’s milk gently exfoliates the skin to help keep it clean and clear. Since it is perfect for dry or sensitive skin, it is great for young and old alike. The pH balance of goat’s milk is similar to skin so it is a wonderful choice to add to soaps, lotions, and other beauty products. Unlike buttermilk, which is low in fat, goat’s milk has fat globules suspended throughout the milk. As a result, some have found they need to use less moisturizers due to the richness gained from regularly using goat’s milk. No wonder it is so popular in handcrafted soaps and lotions!

Working with any milk in soapmaking can pose a challenge because the heat generated in dissolving the lye can curdle or scorch the milk. I use some tricks to minimize those effects.

When mixing the lye into the milk, it is best to use frozen milk to help keep the temperature down to prevent scorching. Because buttermilk tends to spoil more quickly than traditional cow’s milk or coconut milk, I freeze it into small cubes so that it is absolutely fresh when I use it in a recipe. Having it already frozen in specific units of measurement also helps make the soapmaking process quicker and more successful.

Buttermilk powder is also used in some products when I need to add the benefits of buttermilk but do not want the extra liquid.​

Of all the milk consumed worldwide, 65% is goat’s milk - not cow’s milk. Goat’s milk was also the milk of choice for Cleopatra, the Egyptian Queen known for her beauty, when she took a milk bath.

Fresh goat’s milk spoils quickly, so I use the goat’s milk powder instead for our goat’s milk soap. I have found that the powder is easier to add to my soaping oils and have crafted my recipes accordingly so they use the powdered form.

Buttermilk is used in several of our artisan soaps because it adds a creamy moisture and a rich lather. It gently exfoliates the dead skin cells away to expose the skin’s healthy glow. Deep-cleaning and astringent properties keeps your skin looking its youngest! Here are our products with creamy buttermilk!

Spanish Fly Buttermilk Soap

Charcoal & Buttermilk Facial Soap

Buttermilk Castile Soap

Simple Lavender Buttermilk Soap

Felted Buttermilk Soap

Bury the Bourbon Buttermilk Soap Favors

Buttermilk Charcoal Soap

Peppermint Candy Buttermilk Soap

Kitchen Helper Hand Soap

Goat’s milk richly moisturizes dry skin, so we use it in our Goats and Oats Artisan Soap and our Black Salt Clay Soap for shaving. Let your skin enjoy!

Goats and Oats All Natural Soap

Black Salt Clay Soap

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