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5 from 2 votes

Nettle & Goat Milk Shampoo Bar Recipe

Cold-process shampoo bar recipe using creamy goat milk and oil-regulating nettle extract. This is a small batch that makes about 5-6 bars. Technical information: 1lb / 454g batch -- 16% superfat -- 25% lye solution (no water discount). This is a reduced-size recipe from the Herbal Academy's Botanical Skincare Book and Tanya's notes and recommendations are included.
Keyword chamomile, soap, soap recipe
Prep Time 1 hour 30 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Curing time 28 days
Total Time 2 hours
Servings 6 bars
Author Herbal Academy
Cost 25

Equipment

Ingredients

Nettle Tea

Goat Milk Slurry*

  • 133 g nettle tea 4.69 oz
  • 38 g goat milk 1.3 oz

To Make the Lye solution

Solid oils

Liquid oils

Add after trace

Instructions

Preparation

  • Prepare mold, lining it if necessary.
  • Heat distilled water to boiling point. Remove from heat and add fresh or dried nettle. Allow to cool.
  • Remove nettle, or strain out powdered nettle.

Make the Goat Milk Slurry

  • Measure out the nettle tea and goat milk and put it in the freezer until slushy and almost frozen.
    Tanya's notes: this took around an hour for me. I checked every fifteen minutes and swirled the liquid around each time so that the mixture would be an even slushy texture.

Melt the Oils

  • Weight and combine the olive oil, coconut oil, castor oil, avocado oil, and shea butter in a large stainless steel pot. Heat until melted and cool to 90-110 degrees F (32-43 degrees C).
    Tanya's notes: it's easier to melt the solid oils in the pan then add the liquid oils after the solid oils are melted. Doing this helps keep the overall oil temperature lower.

Make the Lye Water

  • Weigh lye. Go outside, and with proper safety gear on, add lye to the goat milk and nettle water mixture [the slurry] stirring until dissolved. 90-110 degrees F (32-43 degrees C).
    Tanya's notes: I cooled my oils and lye water to 100F (38C) before mixing them together. Also, proper safety gear includes goggles, rubber gloves, an apron, and closed-toe shoes.

Make the Shampoo Bars

  • After oils and lye water are cooled, pour lye water into oils and blend with an immersion blender on and off until the mixture reaches light trace.
    Tanya's notes: I recommend pouring the lye water through a sieve to catch any undissolved bits of lye. Also, this recipe takes a very long time to come to trace, at almost five minutes. If you've never made soap before, please read the full instructions in my eco-friendly soap recipe for a full explanation of the way you use an immersion blender and what trace is. That recipe includes a video for you to watch too.
  • Add essential oils and blend until incorporated.
    Tanya's notes: blend means to stir gently with your spatula. Do not use the immersion blender here.
  • Pour into mold, cover, and insulate lightly for 24 hours. Goat milk can cause soap to overheat so watch for any bubbling or splitting. If gel becomes too dark, remove cover.
    Tanya's notes: I poured this soap into a 1-lb silicone soap mold and insulated it soap as instructed. I did this using a closed shoebox and a towel wrapped around the mold to keep the soap warm. A small plate placed over the top of the soap mold kept the towel from touching the soap. The shoebox helps the soap to fully gel and turn brown. If you leave this milk-based soap only 'lightly' covered with a tea towel, the center of the block would likely gel and the outsides wouldn't. That would leave a dark circular center called partial gel.
  • Tanya's Additional Notes: Though I followed the instructions for the recipe, I personally would not recommend insulating soap made with goat milk or any other milk. It can scorch and turn brown since the sugars in milk can heat up (and overheat!) the soap even after you pour it into molds.
    Instead, soap at a cool temperature, pour the soap batter into the mold(s), and leave it uncovered on the counter. Alternatively, put the soap in the refrigerator to keep the temperature down and the bars white, as I share in my own goat milk soap recipe.
    I also poured some of this soap into small molds and refrigerated it so that you can see the color difference. The bar that looks a little squished is one that I tried removing from the mold after two days. The other is one that I froze solid before removing from the mold.
  • Remove from mold, cut, and cure for 4-6 weeks.
    Tanya's notes: I removed the block of soap and measured it into six bars 3/4" bars and cut them with a stainless steel kitchen knife. When doing this, make sure that you wear gloves when handling the soap within 48 hours of making it. During this time, the soap will still contain a small amount of lye and can irritate your skin.
  • Tanya's additional notes: you will very likely have trouble removing this soap from your mold(s). Due to the full-water amount and high superfat the soap is soft and very sticky after 24 hours, and even after several days. If you run into this issue, you can either wait a week or two to get the soap out or put your soap molds in the freezer until the soap is completely frozen. The soap will then pop out of the molds like ice-cubes and will not affect the soap or its qualities.

Curing and storing your Shampoo Bars

  • The Herbal Academy instructions end here, but I'd like to give you a little more guidance on what to do next. Soap needs at least a month if not two months to be ready to use. With this recipe, I'd advise a 6-8 week cure time, just to ensure that excess water evaporates out, the lye and oils complete saponification, and most importantly, soap crystals have a chance to fully form. Because this soap is high in coconut oil, you will need that time for the soap to become mild enough to use. Here are full instructions on how to cure soap.
  • Once made, your soap will have a shelf-life of up to two years. Check the oil bottles that you're using though -- the closest best-by date is the best-by date of your soap. Store cold-process soap out of direct sunlight but not in a sealed container. Soap sealed in tupperware will sweat and the excess oil in the recipe (the superfat) may go rancid.
  • When using soap bars as shampoo, ensure that you finish with an acid rinse to help neutralize the pH of your hair. Follow up with a conditioner of your choice. Leaving these steps out can result in your being very unhappy with the texture of your hair.

Notes

Tanya's notes on the Ingredients
* The water amount (the total liquid in the slurry) is too much in my opinion and contributes to the soap being very soft when you're trying to remove it from the mold. Full-water amounts (no water discount) like the measurements given in this one are for hot-process, rather than cold-process soap. For soap that will be easier to unmold, and won't shrink in size over the cure time, I'd advise that you use 2/3 of the amounts listed for the nettle tea and the goat milk to create the slurry.
** The scent of ordinary lemon essential oil will fade from your soap in less than a week, and I don't recommend using it. Instead, use 10 fold (also called 10x) lemon essential oil for soap recipes. It's a type of lemon essential oil that has been distilled ten times and is very concentrated. The scent in it will last and smell wonderful!

Nutrition

Serving: 6bars