As I mixed up several batches of this Milk and Honey soap, I was considering the different ingredients I was adding and what they contributed to the soap. Honey lays down a clear, protective film that helps skin maintain moisture. It hydrates and soothes the skin and is thought to be slightly antiseptic and bacteriostatic. It does all of this without being greasy, even contributing astringint value. Propolis is antibacterial, reduces inflammation, and stimulates the immune system.

To quote one description: “Two natural treasures in one bar of soap help repair sores, fight acne, soothe chapping, and balance uneven or oily skin.

Bee products—honey, propolis, pollen and wax—meet goat milk to clean up the toughest skin problems you can muster.

Honey cleanses dirt and impurities while smoothing wrinkles by increasing your skin’s elasticity. Propolis—a mixture of the essential oils, pollen, and wax bees harvest from plants—nourishes dry, itchy skin. Pollen, rich in enzymes and vitamins, contains the complete family of amino acids. It promotes new skin cell growth while scrubbing away built-up dead cells without stripping the skin of its natural protection.

Milk & Honey’s beeswax base is the all-natural “carrier” for other ingredients that leaves your skin feeling soft and clean.

Raw goat milk is rich in enzymes beneficial to your skin, and five natural, skin-replenishing oils balance and moisturize. This abundance of revitalizing components is topped off with a touch of sweet orange essential oil for an agreeable, bright aroma.”

Our Milk and Honey Soap has proved to work great for our customers, as noted by what these customers had to say:

This is the best facial soap bar I have tried. I use it at night time to wash off the days dirt and make up (with no moisturizer afterward since I have somewhat oily skin), and by morning time my face is smooth and clean. I love how it lathers up, and the sweet smell makes is so pleasant to use. I have stopped using the expensive clinique and estee lauder products completely since this has worked out much better in every way. It does last a long time, too. I recommend it to friends whenever I get the chance.

This soap is great. I have problem skin and have never used a soap. Actually I’ve used the same cleanser on my skin for years and just didn’t like how my skin was looking lately (lifeless and dry). I tried this soap thinking it wouldn’t make much of a difference and WOW! I was able to stop using the medication on my skin that I had used for years. My skin looks great and glowing.

Try it out for yourself! To find it, click HERE.

Some soap molds stacked to dry.

With over two hundred soap molds in my stock, it can be a lengthy process to clean all of them. In fact, many facets of the soapmaking process are made more complicated by the use of these detailed soap molds. It takes longer to set out all the molds for the pouring process of the soapmaking. It takes longer, and is trickier, to pour the soap into the molds, since each individual soap mold cavity must be carefully filled.

Pouring Soap

This limits the amount of soap I can make at one time, since it is necessary for me to be able to get all the goat milk soap poured into the molds before the soap becomes too thick. The molds take up a singnificant amount of storage place. They are relativiely expensive to invest in. With these factors in mind, most soapmakers deem it too much work to produce soap for sale using these molds. I, however, think that the beautiful goat milk soap resulting from these molds is well worth the extra work! I can get a bar of plain old square, retangular, round, or oval soap anyday — maybe even natural soap. But how often can I find an all-natural, goat milk soap bar that is as beautiful to look at as it is nourishing to use? I want to be able to offer such a product to my customers, even it if means a bit more work and time for me, and these molds are the perfect tool to help me do that.

Molds such as this one produce the beautiful, detailed designs of Garland Goat Soap of Maine!

By the way, do you have a particular design you’d like to see in our goat milk soaps? Please offer your suggestions…I’m delighted to hear what you’d like so that I may be able to suppply it for you!

In the beginnings of Garland Goat Soap of Maine, I handcrafted all our soap right in our kitchen, one batch at a time. After many hours of soapmaking in the kitchen, producing thousands of bars of soap, I had developed as system that was as efficient and streamlined as possible under the circumstances. More recently, I have set up a separate soapmaking room in the spare area of the basement. This has been a valuable upgrade, allowing much more efficient production of my soap. It’s also given me the opportunity to “test run” the setup and based on those observations, plan for the new soapmaking room.

It’s not the goal of Garland Goat Soap to become a mass manufacture of soap; we will always carefully handcraft our soap in small batches with all-natural goodness. However, the new soap room will provide an easier way for me to efficiently produce soap, giving me more time to work on new types of soap and all-natural goat milk skin care items! Of course, no matter how hard we work, we can’t build our new house…and the new soap room…instantaneously, so I look forward to it in the future. In the meantime, I am content to keep on working in my little soap room, carefully handcrafting soap one bar at a time!

Coconut oil is also an essential component of Garland Goat Soap. Coconut oil is obtained from copra, which is dried coconut meat. It provides many benefits to a natural bar soap!

Coconut oil creates a hard bar of soap with fluffy lather.

When used in the right proportion, coconut oil creates a good, hard bar of soap that won’t just “melt away” in your soap dish. It also contributes generous, fluffy lather for a squeaky clean feeling. More than that, though, coconut oil is an ideal skin-care oil! Because coconut oil’s molecules are small, they are easily absorbed into skin, making it the perfect moisturizer for dry or rough skin.

It helps protect your skin from the aging effects of free radicals.  It can help to keep the skin from developing liver spots, and other blemishes caused by aging and over exposure to sunlight.  When coconut oil is absorbed into the skin and connective tissues, it helps to reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles by working to keep connective tissues strong and supple. The oil is absorbed into cell structure of the skins connective tissues, limiting the damage excessive sun exposure can cause. Coconut oil will aid in exfoliating the outer layer of dead skin cells, making the skin smoother.

Coconut oil helps prevent aging in your skin!

Antiseptic fatty acids in coconut oil help to prevent fungal and bacterial infections in the skin to a certain extent when it is used in skin-care. Because of these qualities, coconut oil also helps in treating various skin problems including psoriasis, dermatitis, eczema and other skin infections. I consider it indispensable in my soap recipes!

I got a shipment of soapmaking supplies in today, including  olive oil, coconut oil, and palm oil, some of the major ingredients I use in my soap. I wonder how many people realize what oils in soap do – or not do – for their skin. When first experimenting with soap making, I followed a simple recipe that used primarily vegetable shortening as the oil (fat), with a smattering of olive oil. It was certainly a cheap option for producing soap…and it worked for the time being, but as I began to develope my soap recipes, I began to look into other oils that would provide complete care for the skin, from moisturizing to rejuvanting skin cells, from gently cleaning baby’s face to aiding mature skin types.

After all, oils are the primary components of a natural soap bar, composing approximately sixty-five percent of the ingredients of bar soap. It would make sense then, that the type and quality of oil used in the soap drastically effects how that soap works for your skin, for the essential nature of any soap is directly related to the oils within it. The oils used in soap affect both the physical nature of the soap bar (feel, texture, hardness, etc.) and the skin-care properties of the bar (moisturizing, softening, protecting, etc.) Too much of one oil can create a bar of soap that is hard to the point of being brittle and cracking. Too much of another type of oil will produce soap that is soft, sticky, and quickly melts away in the soap dish.

Some oils are ultra-moisturizing for the skin, yet will spoil in a natural bar of soap like ours (since we don’t use the often harmful chemical preservatives found in many commercial soap) unless used in the correct proportions. Other oils will leave a greasy film on the surface of the skin. It was important, than, that I used the right kind of oils in the right proportions to get just the perfect bar of soap! I also wanted to use oils that would compliment and enhance the qualities of goat milk in my soap. In the next blog, I’ll begin to look at the oils I did choose, and why I chose them. Right now, it’s time to go get that oil stored away!

Most of all, though, we have always just enjoyed our goats! When we were younger (and had the time!), my sister and I would often spend hours playing with our goats, observing them, teaching them tricks, and often taking them for walks! If you’ve never had a goat, you don’t know what friendly, personable, and unique pets they are! Most people who haven’t owned goats have been educated about them via myths portraying them as dirty, smelly animals that eat anything and produce bad-tasting milk. In reality, a properly cared for goat is friendly, very fastidious about what she eats, clean, intelligent, and produces delicious, sweet, creamy milk (again, provided that it’s cared for in the proper manner.)

Currently, our small goat herd consists of five registered Alpine does (the correct term for a female goat): Showgirl, Little Meggy, Tatty, Wales, and Touché.

Showgirl is a flashy black and white doe, very proud and lofty, with a dignified friendliness.

Meggy, mostly black with a few distinct white markings, is a very sweet and friendly doe who loves to be scratched. She is an excellant milk producer!

Dark bay Tatty is the most mischievous and rambunctious, yet endearing in her own way because of those very traits.

One of the best milk producers, Wales also loves attention, and won’t leave the milkstand after milking until she has had her scratches.

As the youngest, Touché is a graceful, deep brown and black doe, very shy with strangers, but quite friendly with those she knows. Milking time for our adult does is twice daily, five o’clock in the morning, and five o’clock in the evening. Anyone want to come by and help with the morning milking?!

"Showgirl" produces some of the excellant milk that goes into Garland Goat Soap bars.

We’ve looked at some of the reason’s goat milk is a valuable addition to your skin-care. Perhaps this has raised a question for some of you: Why do we use goats milk in our natural soap bars, rather than cows milk? Does it make a difference? Well, as a matter of fact, it does! Although all milk, to some degree, has good skin-care qualities, goat milk is especially rich, full of nutrients for your skin.

The composition of goat milk differs from that of cow milk. Goat milk is higher than cow milk in vitamins A (helps prevent aging effects in your skin, brown spots, wrinkles, and dryness), B1 (thiamin), B12, calcium (helps clear blemished skin and revitalizes lifeless, tired-looking skin), iron, niacin, and phosphorus. Compared to cow milk, goat milk is higher in small and medium chain fatty acids (which richly moisturize your skin), including caprylic acid which helps our soap to clean without drying out the skin.

All milk contains certain amounts of natural emollients, vitamins and triglycerides that moisturize the skin. However, goat milk has a unique protein structure that enables higher absorption of the milk’s natural emollients. And of course, the higher the absorption level of the emollients, the more effective the moisturizing properties of the soap are! So while cow’s milk may also be good for your skin, goat’s milk definitely has the cutting edge in value for a great bar of handcrafted natural soap!

Time for a walk!

Four young ladies spent the past week with me for the opportunity to experience first hand taking care of all the goat kids and pitching in with the milking chores. Jessica, Julia, Sarah, and Hannah worked willingly and proved an excellent help…from bottle-feeding the kids, to milking the does, from washing soap molds to wrapping and labeling soap.

The Girls and Kids

On their last day here, the balmy temperatures and sunny blue skies beckoned us all to spend the day outdoors, and we unanimously agreed it was the perfect day to wash all the goats. Every spring, with the arrival of moderate weather, we give all our goats a thorough bath to rid them of their winter fuzz and dust. Not only is it a satisfying feeling to see them resplendent in their shinning clean coats, it is also an excellent way to avoid potential skin and hair problems in our goat herd.

Jess and Julia washing "Tatty."

For some years before we made our own soap, we would go searching at our local feed stores for animal shampoos that would thoroughly clean our goats, without the use of multiple chemicals and harsh detergents. When we did find a shampoo that fit the bill, it was often beyond our budget. With the creation of our own goat milk bar soap, however,our shampoo search was over! I quickly discovered a simple way to turn the goat milk soap into a shampoo that works wonderfully on both our goats and our dogs, leaving their coats shinning and sleek, and their skin smooth and supple.

Lots of soap suds = clean goats!

Perhaps you also have animals you’d like to treat to a spring bath. Here’s my Animal Shampoo Recipe in case you’re interested in trying it:

Grate 1 bar of Garland Goat Soap, any scent (my favorites are lemongrass, rosemary or tea tree for the animal shampoo) into fine shavings.

Add 2 cups of boiling water to the grated soap and mix thoroughly with a whisk to dissolve the soap shavings. Allow to cool before using. Enjoy!

At first, this shampoo will be quite liquidy, but will thicken as it cools. I usually mix it up right before I need it. Let me know how this shampoo works for your pets!

There are many aspects to keeping healthy, vibrant, smooth skin. Your skin needs to be moisturized, it needs to be exfoliated - the dead skin cells broken down and removed-, it needs protection against harmful bacteria, and it needs good, healthy nourishment and rejuvenation.

Two constituents in goat milk, alpha-hydroxy acid and caprylic acid, both play a crucial role in rejuvenating your skin, adding vital elements of skin-care to our soap. For instance, over time your skin looses its ability to get rid of old cells fast enough. Therefore this outermost skin layer thickens, which reduces your skin’s elasticity and fresh look. Here’s where the alpha-hydoxy acids come into play, breaking down the glue holding your dead skin cells together, and thereby providing the way for your skin to easily shed those unwanted, dead layers. This results in less wrinkles and age spots, less acne, and less dry skin. Alpha-hydroxy acids also help to plump the skin and smooth fine lines. Additionally, these acids neutralize free radicals, slowing the aging process and refreshing the skin.

Caprylic acid is a fatty acid contained in goat milk that reduces alkalinity, giving goat milk soap a pH level very close to that of the skin. This enables our soap to cleanse without stripping the skin of its protective barrier of natural, neccesary oils. Caprylic acid also soothes the surface tension of the skin, allowing it to be moisturized and to absorb the other healthy nutrients of the soap. In addition to alpha-hydroxy acid and caprylic acid, there are other fatty acids present in goat milk that are natural antimicrobials and antifungals.

It is a well know fact that in ancient times, Cleopatra, renowned for her beauty, took milk baths. Now we know why it worked so well for her!!