Why Goat Milk Soap
To answer this question, let’s first start with, “what is soap”? Soap is made when oils are mixed with a lye solution that has been created by mixing water with sodium hydroxide. Most soaps sold commercially are not actually soap, but are synthetic detergents. Goat milk soap is made with oils and a lye solution made with goatmilk rather than water. The goat milk provides added fats, as well as vitamins and minerals, that help to produce a creamy, gentle bar of soap. Goat milk is rich in both saturated and unsaturated fats, contributing many excellent qualitites to the soap. Saturated fats improve the lather of the soap, while the unsaturated fats provide moisturizing properties. Goat milk soaps are made in small batches, which has other great advantages. Glycerin is a beneficial byproduct of saponification that helps to hydrate the skin and hold in moisture. It also serves as a shield to protect the skin from environmental irritants. Commercially produced soaps remove most or all of the glycerin to sell in other products, but in small batch soaps, the glycerin remains in the soap.
Our goats are fed an organic diet of alfalfa, grass, and pasture browse which includes plenty of blackberries. Their diet is enriched with an organic dairy goat pellet during their third trimester of pregnancy through their milking season.
We typically milk our girls from March or April though December. The goats typically begin delivering their babies in March and are done by May, though we are expecting some late births this year, extending our breeding season in to the midlle of summer.
The vast majority of our milk goes in to our soaps with very little left over for family consumption, but this year we have increased our number of goats to be milked in an effort to have more milk for drinking, cheese making, and caramel. We will share all of this with you throughout our miling season this year. Be sure to check bac here often for updates. I am working to establish an email list to help you all that want to stay updated on things around the dairy. Stay tuned! More to come.