M&P Recipes

[franu61]

Thanks KS

[Candybee]

The only time I cover my freshly poured soap is when its humid. If you don't you can get those fuzzy crystals on top from the glycerine in the base drawing moisture from the surrounding air. In that case, unmold, remelt, and repour back into your mold AND COVER with wax paper!!

[franu61]

Thanks Candybee that's good to know.

[kforbs126]

Candybee do you know a good base that is good for sensitive skin? I'm really leaning on trying peak's bases since I already use them for wax and FO.

[Candybee]

Peaks carries the SFIC brand which is a hallmark brand in the M&P industry. Their bases are sulphate free I believe and they are very good. Being sulphate free you want to limit the use of additives as too much will kill lather.

I find the best lather typically comes from goat milk bases. Its also the creamiest and best conditioning. Any of the SFIC bases should feel good on your skin but I would start with a shea butter or goat milk for extra gentleness and moisturizing. If you like, you can buy both and melt them together.

[Candybee]

Giving this thread a little

[puma52]

Candybee....thanks so much for the bump up.....I have been loving the sound of all of these recipes and I am copying them and am going to be making several for this Spring! 805 Soap on You Tube has even said that when she goes to craft shows  her M&P has been outselling her CP soaps so she has has turned her business around to more M&P soap since she is selling more of that than the CP soap. I am still going to make my hot process soap though in a few scents....LOVE my HP soap! As far as the M&P recipe: Cranberry Orange Spice Soap  I am sad that the CS Cranberry Marmalade is no longer considered skin safe. Do you know of another scent to use that would be close to this scent? Thanks for your input!

[Candybee]

I think that people like the versatility you have with creating a lot of different effects with M&P. Some say they can do more with M&P than CP.

 

I started out making M&P and have to say it sold really well. But then I always felt my soap was better than some of the local soapers soap. Even my customers and wholesale accounts told me that and still do. But now I am into working with CP and still have so much to learn.

[puma52]

Time for another bump up!! I made the recipe that Praireannie gave all of us using coconut milk instead of the goats milk and also used the stearic acid....what a difference in my melt and pour soaps .......DIVINE...so creamy and wonderful!....the water beads on my skin from the yummy oils!! I am going to be using some of your recipes extremely soon Candybee....I can't wait! Thanks to you both for sharing so much!

[Candybee]

Glad you like them. PA's goat milk recipe is very nice. Just remember to not use too much stearic in your soap. About 1tsp PP base is plenty. More and it compromises the lather.

[puma52]

Glad you like them. PA's goat milk recipe is very nice. Just remember to not use too much stearic in your soap. About 1tsp PP base is plenty. More and it compromises the lather.

 Thanks for the reminder on the stearic acid. Since I had never made this soap before, I probably put a little less than that in mine, but It DEFINITELY made a harder soap which I just loved! Thanks again.  

[*Dee*]

Okay loving this thread.. AGAIN lol Looking at C&S at MP soap bases and they have TONS compared to 6 years ago when I was buying them lol. Wondering which goats milk is better, theirs or Stephensons?  (keeping this bumped to re read tomorrow when kids are in school, I know I missed a lot with my 9 year old talking my ear off lol) 

[Tammy.D]

On 11/28/2011 at 7:16 AM, Darbla said:

Have any of you tried the "Jack Frost" soap recipe at that old link in the beginning of this thread? Here it is:

 

Jack Frost Bars - makes 2/3 bars

300 gms Clear Soap Base

5 gms Water

3 tsp Espson Salts

Choice of colours

Fragrance Oil

Melt 100gms clear soap base.

Add colour and stir in.

Place some aluminium foil in the bottom of a small plate

Sprinkle Epson salts over the foil

Pour the melted soap base over the salt crystals

Place in the freezer for about 15 mins

When frozen you will see a reaction between the salt and the foil which makes the soap look like it has frost patterns on it.

Take a rolling pin or similar and break this soap into small pieces. (It will break along some of the lines)

Melt the remaining 200gms of soap base

Add fragrance Oil

Allow to cool slightly

Pop the broken pieces of soap into a mould and pour the remaining soap over the top.

Turn out and admire your Jack Frost Bars

I really want to try this!

[Moonstar]

On 5/12/2015 at 9:59 PM, puma52 said:

Time for another bump up!! I made the recipe that Praireannie gave all of us using coconut milk instead of the goats milk and also used the stearic acid....what a difference in my melt and pour soaps .......DIVINE...so creamy and wonderful!....the water beads on my skin from the yummy oils!! I am going to be using some of your recipes extremely soon Candybee....I can't wait! Thanks to you both for sharing so much!

I know this is an old thread but are you referring to coconut milk powder or actual coconut milk. How much do you add + if its actual coconut milk won't it go rancid?

Im trying to find the old archived recipes you guys are referring to + I can't seem to find them - any advise on how to pull those up ? Thanks Puma  

Before I forget, any new updates on the aftermath of the fires ? 

[puma52]

On 12/16/2016 at 9:18 AM, Moonstar said:

I know this is an old thread but are you referring to coconut milk powder or actual coconut milk. How much do you add + if its actual coconut milk won't it go rancid?

Im trying to find the old archived recipes you guys are referring to + I can't seem to find them - any advise on how to pull those up ? Thanks Puma  

Before I forget, any new updates on the aftermath of the fires ? 

Hey Moonstar!

I'm sorry I did not get back to you sooner. My sister did have to have the major scoliosis surgery and I have been staying with her in the hospital from Wed last week to yesterday when she went to rehab. As far as the Smoky Mtn.fire....the are still being tight lipped about the juveniles....strange indeed. I hope they are building a strong case. But Dolly did get over 9 Million dollars last week during her telethon...amazing! They have not labeled this a disaster and folks can now get FEMA and more help.

 

I did use actual coconut milk....it is DIVINE! I used it in the melt and pour recipe below subbing it for the goats milk and I also use milks in all of my hot process soaps now...it makes for a very creamy and delicious soap. I have never had any spoilage...here is the Prairieannie recipe that I do believe that started it all. Candybee also throughout this thread has awesome recipes. These two be the bombdotcom of M&P I do believe.

 

I am also going to post information that I found on using milks in soap recipes. This made me a lot braver about using these delicious milks in all soaps.

 

 

My Basic MP Soap Recipe

I will cut this down for the purpose of this thread because I tend to make BIG batches!

(I use all of these ingredients in every bar of my soap)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2lb white soap base (I use EBC, but you can use what you have)

1/2 cup fresh goat milk (you can use canned or powdered if you want)

4T liquid soap (unscented, undyed)

2T honey

2T shea butter

1T cocoa butter

1T olive oil

1 T jojoba oil

Fragrance oil (add as much or as little as you would for 2lb soap recipe)

I use a presto pot .. melt the base first and then add the other ingredients mixing well.

Produces skin loving bubbly bars of soap with super creamy lather!

Enjoy

 

Spotlight on Ingredients: Heavy Cream

8

 

Cream Drop by Kyle May

Do you ever read over recipes or watch soaping videos and wonder why soapmakers use the ingredients they use? After all, the only essentials for a good bar of handmade soap are oils, water, and lye. However, certain additives do impart some nice qualities to your soap, and in a series of posts, I wanted to share some of the “extra” ingredients I use in soap and why I use them.

Heavy cream has a lot of fat in it—36% fat or more. Goat milk typically has 4-5% fat. Cream is very rich and smooth. While the benefits of milks—especially goat milk—are widely known, not as many soapers use cream, possibly because of the expense. I wouldn’t try substituting all of the water in a recipe with cream, and not only because of the cost, but also because of the high fat content. The cream will likely congeal fairly quickly, even if you freeze it first, because the lye will react to the fat in the cream. If you have made milk soaps, you may have noticed that if you set the milk and lye mixture aside for a few moments, it does start to thicken as the lye reacts to the fats in the milk. Another reason you might not want to use cream as a total water replacement is that the high fat content might really throw off your superfat percentage.

So how do I use cream in soap? I usually add about 4-5% of the amount of oils to a batch of soap. So, for example, if I make a batch of soap that is 500 grams (I always measure in grams; it’s more precise than ounces and easier to convert), then I would add about 22 grams of cream to the batch. I admit this is approximate because I usually add a round number of grams of cream to my soap. For example, my typical batch is about 2.5 pounds of oils, or 1120 grams, and I usually add about 50 grams of cream to a batch that size. I would recommend using heavy cream at a rate of about 3-5%. You really don’t need to use a lot. When I use cream in my soap, I remove the same amount of water from the recipe. For example, in my batch with 50 grams of cream, I remove 50 grams of distilled water from the recipe. If you use full water and cream, you might find your soap takes a little longer to harden. I have not experimented with using full water and cream.

Before I add the cream to the oils, I warm it up a bit so that it is the same temperature as the oils (more or less). Then, I add my cream directly to my oils and stick blend it before adding the lye. I have noticed that it will not emulsify completely with the oils. Typically there are tiny white flecks of cream floating on the top of my oils. I usually give the oils one more quick stick blend before adding the lye water, but it probably isn’t necessary because once the lye water is added, it will all blend.

I first noticed the benefits of using cream in soap by accident. I made a batch of Creamy Coconut soap with coconut milk and cream.

I mainly added the cream because I felt it would be in keeping with the name of the soap to have both real coconut milk and real cream in it. When I used it in the shower, I noticed how smooth the bars felt. If you can believe it, I didn’t immediately realize this smoothness was because of the cream. I thought it might have been the coconut milk.

I started noticing that other soapmakers used cream in their soaps, and when I ordered soaps from these soapmakers, I noticed how smooth their bars were. At first, I wasn’t sure why their soaps were so much smoother than mine either because there are so many variables—oil recipes, other additives, and the like. But eventually I realized it was the cream in the soap that added smoothness. I have used cream in almost all of the soaps I have made since that discovery (I typically do not use it in milk soaps, with the exception of Creamy Coconut).

In addition to smoothness, cream adds some of the same benefits as other milks in soap—extra conditioning being the main benefit imparted by heavy cream. I mainly enjoy the feel of soap with cream in it. It is definitely smoother than soap made just with water. It feels silky on the skin. I typically do not have to use much lotion at all because of the conditioning oils and butters in my soap, but I have noticed even less of a need to use lotion in those soaps made with cream.

Adding just a little bit of cream can add some great qualities to your soap. With my recipe of just 50 grams, I am adding 18 grams of fat, so my superfat percentage will not be drastically different from my calculation.

As usual, David Fisher has experimented with cream and shared his results. You can see what will happen if you add lye to cream in his tutorial. I personally have not found it necessary to freeze the cream I use in my own recipes. In addition, I have never noticed any discoloration as can happen when you use goat milk in place of water. I actually haven’t tried using just a small amount of liquid goat milk and adding it directly to the oils as I do with heavy cream, so you might find that solution works just as well for you.

 

How to Make Soap with Three Milks - Tres Leches

Use to navigate.

 

 

 

Three milks for tres leches soap. Photo Credit: David Fisher

I've made soap with goat's milk for years. I love soap with coconut milk too - such super lather. Making soap with heavy whipping cream was interesting too - but a bit of a challenge due to the high fat content.

So what was I thinking when I decided to make soap with not one, not two, but three milks? Well, I wasn't actually thinking about soap - I was thinking about a lovely dessert, tres leches cake and the three milks that go into it.

 

 

About the same time, I saw a tutorial by my colleague Amanda Griffin on the "milk in oil method" for adding milk to a soap recipe. Naturally, one thing led to another…"I have three different milks that I can use in soap…why not use all three?"…and a recipe was born.

Using milk in place of water for the lye solution is not difficult. Like Amanda's tutorial states, you can add the milk in a couple different ways - either as icy, slushy, frozen milk combined with the lye, or into the oils with a double strength lye solution. Since I was using three milks, not one, I opted for (and generally prefer) the second version.

For this recipe (feel free to create your own soap recipe) which makes about 4.5 pounds of soap, I used:

• Lard - 12.7 oz. - 26%
• Palm Kernel - 13.7 oz. - 28%
• Olive - 13.7 oz. - 28%
• Castor - 2.4 oz. - 5%
• Sunflower - 3.9 oz. - 8%
• Cocoa Butter - 2.4 oz. - 5%
• Lye - 6.7 oz.
• Water - 6.7 oz.
• Coconut milk - 2.5 oz.
• Goat's milk - 2.5 oz. (or enough powder reconstituted into 2.5 ounces)
• Half & Half - 2.5 oz.

• 2.1 ounces of essential or fragrance oils
• ½ cup of finely ground oatmeal
• 1/8 tsp. of gold mica
• 1/8 tsp. of cappuccino mica

[Candybee]

Just so there is no confusion, that last recipe is a cold process soap recipe and not M&P.

 

Adding milks to M&P can add a nice creamy texture to your soaps and is always worth experimenting with. Start out simple by trying out about a tablespoon per lb base and adjust from there. Some bases will hold more while others not so much. I used goat milk and coconut milk a lot.  But don't forget other milks out there, almond, soy, hemp, evaporated, powdered, half in half, cream, yogurt, etc. I have tried them all and love them all. I think the only one I never got around to trying was ice cream. LOL!

Edited December 20, 2016 by Candybee

[Terry]

Oh man, I don't know how I missed the last two posts on this thread from Puma and Candybee but glad I now found them!!!!!!!

Thanks guys

 

[puma52]

On 12/30/2016 at 2:09 PM, Terry said:

Oh man, I don't know how I missed the last two posts on this thread from Puma and Candybee but glad I now found them!!!!!!!

Thanks guys

 

Yes...those last posts have to do w/regular soap recipes, but I wanted you to see and read about how wonderful milks are for your soaps whether they are M&P or CP or HP. 

Since you are now making cold process soap, I sure do hope that you try these milks in them too!

Do not be afraid to use milks in your soaps...they are just a lovely addition! 

Gracious...typo on the update on fire in our area...this HAS been labeled a disaster now so our folks can now get FEMA help and low interest loans.

 

[Alona]

On 3/13/2010 at 12:58 PM, Candybee said:

That will of course depend on your base and you will have to test the recipe and make adjustments as needed. I am trying to post recipes in the amounts that should work for most bases. Unfortunately there are some bases that simply do not take oils and butters well.

If you find that adding the shea butter compromises the lather of your finished soap then cut the amount or try adding some shaving base or liquid soap like Dr. Bronners for additional lather.

I know others have posted here about having success with adding lather to their base by using the liquid soap or shaving base. Dr. Bronners you can get at most any store that sells liquid soap; drug stores, health food stores, etc. The shaving soap is a M&P base that can be purchased at a supplier who carries M&P bases.

candybee could i use a recipe for the melt and pour base sold already made.  Yours are added to the base or no?  Im lost

[Candybee]

23 hours ago, Alona said:

candybee could i use a recipe for the melt and pour base sold already made.  Yours are added to the base or no?  Im lost

 

Do you mean can you use one of my M&P recipes? Yes of course. That is what this thread is all about. The ingredients in the recipe are what you add to the base. In each recipe I tell you how much base to use and what ingredients and amounts to add. Use the base of your choice.

[MommaD]

Ok.  I am  slowly trying to get back into the game and found this beautiful thread.. I found some soaps that I want to try, and I have been doing a bit of research. I noticed that peak candle supply is just fragrance oil's now so unfortunately I won't be able to get the soap from them. I also noticed that on the cranberry orange spice soap, candles and supplies no longer carries a cranberry marmalade. Is there a good alternative for the cranberry marmalade?  Thank you in advance!!!

[Sarah S]

On August 20, 2018 at 2:45 PM, MommaD said:

Ok.  I am  slowly trying to get back into the game and found this beautiful thread.. I found some soaps that I want to try, and I have been doing a bit of research. I noticed that peak candle supply is just fragrance oil's now so unfortunately I won't be able to get the soap from them. I also noticed that on the cranberry orange spice soap, candles and supplies no longer carries a cranberry marmalade. Is there a good alternative for the cranberry marmalade?  Thank you in advance!!!

 

I would take a look at Wholesale Supplies Plus for soap base and fragrance oils for starters, they have a massive selection and consistently good quality. For M&P it's one stop shopping, although their oils can be a little pricey.

I also really like Rustic Escentuals bases and fragrances. If you're looking to stick with just one supplier initially you can't go wrong with either of them.

I have never looked specifically for a cranberry marmalade fragrance, but I know both of those suppliers have lots of cranberry and/or jelly fragances.

HTH!

[Kris10Tackles]

I know this post hasn’t been active for awhile but I just order my first M&P soap bases. I’ve mostly been playing around with candles and awhile back ordered Stephenson whipped soap base which I loved! My SO commented last night that he was running low on the shave soap he uses which is in “bar” form and wondered if it was something I’d consider making. “Sure why not! I can just add it to the list!” 😆 

 

Wish me luck!