Making your own homemade soap is not hard. Lye can be dangerous and caution should be used, but there is nothing to be afraid of as long as you use common sense. There are a few basic supplies you will need before you begin to make homemade soap.

A thermometer is one of the most important pieces of equipment. You will also need a good pair of rubber gloves and eye goggles for safety reasons. A tall stainless steel pan, a pan to pour the hot soap into (glass works great), long handled wooden spoons and of course, your soap making supplies.

Homemade soap recipes can be found in numerous books and online. Here is a great recipe to make homemade soap with goat milk.

Easy Homemade Goat Milk Soap

3 pints of ice cold goat milk

1  12 oz. can of lye

5 1/2 pounds of lard

2 oz. glycerin

2 T borax

1/3 Cup Honey

Before beginning slightly freeze your goat milk. You want small chunks of ice in it, but you do not want it completely frozen.

Pour the lye, in powder form, into the milk.

Be careful here as the lye will quickly heat the milk up. Stir as you do this. You do not want the milk to get too hot and curdle.

Once the milk and lye are well mixed, add the honey.

The ideal temperature for the lye mixture will be around 85 degrees F, but be warned the mixture will need to cool down some to reach this temperature.

Once the milk, honey and lye have been mixed together, set the pan aside, with a lid on it, if possible, so the mixture does not cool too fast. Stir occasionally.

Put the lard into another container and heat it up until it reaches 90 degrees F then remove it from the heat.

When the contents are both pans are the right temperatures, 85 degrees F for the lye mixture and 90 degrees F for the lard mixture, slowly pour the lard into the lye mixture. Stir constantly and be careful not to splash this mixture. You do not want to get any of this on your skin.

When the lye mixture and the lard are well mixed, add the glycerin and borax. Stir constantly until the mixture thickens. When the mixture becomes the consistency of pudding, drizzle some of the soap on top of the mass of soap. If you can see the drizzle briefly before it sinks back into the mass of soap, the soap has begun to “trace” and is ready to pour into a pan to cool. This process can take anywhere from a few minutes to an hour.

Pour the soap into a pan and allow to cool overnight. You can add essential oils, herbs or other ingredients at this point or simply allow the plain soap to cure. This is the last step to make homemade soap unless you want to make hand milled soap.

If you allow the soap to cure without additives, when it is dry, which can take 6 weeks or longer, you can grate the soap, add nine ounces of water to twelve ounces of soap flakes, re-melt and add the additives. This is then known as hand milled soap.

 Laundry Soap

Once your soap is dry, you can grate it and make laundry detergent out of it or shampoo. To use it as laundry detergent, mix 1 cup grated soap, ½ cup borax and ½ cup washing soda together. You will use approximately 1 tablespoon of this mixture in each wash load, depending on how soiled your clothes are. Experiment and see what works well for you.

 Homemade LIquid Soap

To make shampoo, use ¼ cup grated soap, ¼ cup hot water, 2 tablespoons vegetable glycerin and  ½ teaspoon oil such as jojoba or olive. You can add a few drops of essential oils to this to scent it or add additional healing properties to the shampoo. For example, if you have dark hair, add a few drops of rosemary to enhance your hairs shine. Shake well and use as needed.