Hand Milled Soap

Hard to spoon the glop into molds!

Sometimes you will come across fancy soap in the stores labeled as hand milled or French milled.  It means the soap has been processed a second or third time.  The soap is made, grated, dried and then heated and re-poured.  Some of the big firms use big rollers to press the soap.  The result, apparently, is a finer bar of soap: hard, firm, no traces of lye.  Grated soap is often sold at craft places for people who don't want to make soap from scratch.  You can buy pre-made soap already grated, melt in the oven or crock pot, add your own scents and additives without ever going near a jug of lye.  Milling or re-batching, as it is also called, can be used on a batch of soap that has failed for some reason.  For the DIYer, scents and additives go farther and it's much easier.

I had read about hand milled soap during my learning process before making soap.  I was interested in making soap from scratch with our fresh goats milk, so I didn't pay the process much attention.  As I got into soap making, I chose to use flat molds, rather than loaf molds, so that less heat would build up in our soaps, potentially damaging the goats milk.  To get a nice fat bar I was always over-filling the molds and had to trim away the excess, which I saved - largely because I couldn't bear to throw it away!  After a couple of years of making soap, I had quite a collection of these trimmings, long thin pieces cut from the sides of my batches.  So, I decided to try hand milling to use up the bits.

At home, this involved leaving the bits out to dry, then using my food processor to grate them into smaller bits.  Then a little more milk is added for moisture and I heated the whole thing in the oven at low temperature.  I took my basic method from these instructions and this info.  Grating the soap in my food processor was a bit of a mess: Even though the soap was well cured it stuck to the blade and gooped up.  Pour into a casserole, mix in some milk and heat - quite simple.  It took longer to melt to a nice texture but the mixture was still hard to pour, even after being returned to the oven.  I had used bits of our Simple Soap; apparently heating fragranced soap or soaps with herbs just turns into an ugly mess.

Even after sitting out for over a week...

Unfortunately, the resulting soap is a soft, gooey mess.  Too much milk?  Whatever the problem, I've decided that it's not worth fussing over.  The time involved in re-batching is just not worth my while.  If I can only re-batch unscented soaps that doesn't solve my problem of left over trimmings from soaps with essential oils and herbs.  And, with the time involved, a bar of Simple Soap, which sells for $4 normally, would have to sell for $7 or $8!  I don't think my customers would see the advantage.  I cure my soaps long enough that the lye is all used up and they are nice and firm, so I'm not worrying about those concerns.  As I thought about it I realized that the best thing to do is not over-pour and have all the trimmings left over in the first place!  Soaps were going to have to go up in price this summer due to inevitably rising costs, so instead of raising the price, I'll just have a slightly smaller bar of soap without waste.

A Jersey Cow To The Rescue!

Jersey cow milk is a beautiful golden-ivory shade!

Some friends have a Jersey cow that just gave birth.  The cow, apparently, is producing an amazing amount of milk.  So, we were able to acquire some to help supplement our not-nearly-enough goats milk supply for our baby goats. We prefer raw, fresh milk; we believe pasteurization destroys some of the nutrition of milk.  Of course, when I brought it home I had to try it and it is gorgeous!  It's a yellow cream colour, much more golden than goats milk.  It's rich and buttery and thick.

So as not to upset any little tummies, I started by just adding a splash, then over the course of a week upped the ratio until the cows milk was about a third of the bottle for each kid.  As the kids are already on to a small portion of grain and have hay to nibble, the over-all quantity of milk they are getting is being reduced a bit each week.  The transition was not a problem (animal owners have to get used to examining poop: it just comes with the territory).  So, our baby goats are growing big and strong with every passing day and 'the milk crisis' is lessening.  Mind you me, there is only a couple of bags of frozen goats milk in our freezer, so we may have to buy some commercial goat milk to get us through to weaning, which will be in about three weeks.  Maybe the mommies will produce enough: time will tell!

Now, having a nice haul of fresh milk in the house, and wanting to have a nice 'thank you' to our cow-owning friends, I did set a little aside to make some soap.  I felt a little guilty sneaking milk but.....It seems to have made a lovely soap!  Used it just like I would goats milk, freezing the milk in cubes.  Used our 'Simple Soap' recipe of nothing but Jersey milk, olive oil and coconut oil.  The soap, fresh out of the mold, is ivory but a little darker than goats milk soap.  It will probably darken a bit more during the curing process.  Can hardly wait to try a bar in our shower!

If you'd like to catch pictures of baby goats cavorting check out our Facebook page!  We share probably too many baby goat pictures!

More Soap Experiments

A nice citrus aroma is hard to get, naturally, in soap.  Apparently, the essential oils for orange, lemon, grapefruit and lime do not stand up well to the heat produced during the cold process soap making.  I'd made one small batch in the fall with Sweet Orange essential oil and got almost no hint of fragrance in the finished soap.  Essential oils are expensive, and I'd really like a citrus soap (without resorting to the faux fragrance oils), so I thought I'd try infusing some of the olive oil that I use to make my soap.

Around Christmas, we had a lot of Mandarin oranges around, so it seemed like the perfect time to try an infusion.  I have infused vinegar with the flavor of fresh herbs, a great result and really quite easy.  I was reading about infusing vinegar with orange peels for homemade cleanser and thought I could do the same with oil.  So, I started saving the peels of oranges and air-drying them on the counter.  More moisture in the peels means more possibility of mold/bacteria in the infusion, so I let them all get very dry and crispy.  Shortly after New Years, I packed a jar with the peels and covered them with olive oil.  I had a bag of dried rose buds and tried one with those, as well, because rose essential oil is outrageously expensive!

Six weeks later, they are suppose to be finished.  I can note a colour change in the oils and, sure enough, once I strained out the peels, the orange/olive oil has a light citrus scent.  Now, in our goats milk soap process, we keep everything as cool as possible - to avoid scorching the milk and keeping all the 'good stuff' that milk offers to the skin.  I think that I will keep the infused oil to add at the very end of the process: if the recipe calls for 900 grams of olive oil I will make the soap with 3/4 of that in regular oil and then add 1/4 of the infused oil at the very end of the process, when I add the essential oil.  I think I'll grind up the peels, once they dry, and add them for fragrance and exfoliation.  I have purchased a '5 Fold' lemon essential oil, which is suppose to be much stronger, so I'll make a citrus soap with not just an orange essential oil but the lemon, as well.  Maybe I should acquire some grapefruit essential oil before I do this.

I'm just about to strain the olive oil/rosebud concoction.  It has a nice rose fragrance, but the rose buds seem very soft - I may not be able to grind them to use in the soap, but I can use more of the plain, dried buds.  Should make for some interesting experiments in the kitchen!  What's your favorite fragrance for a soap?  

It Must Be December: I've Got Nails!

It's that time of year...the garden is under snow, the chores are minimal and.....I've got finger nails!  Just in time for the Festive Season!  They are not pretty: my cuticles are not groomed, I've got scratches and dings on my hands, the nails are not shaped or painted....but they are there!

As a market gardener and caretaker to livestock, it's impossible to have nails.  During the growing season there is sooo much stress on nails!  I'm constantly scrounging in the soil weeding or harvesting, often without gloves because I just find they impair my ability.  I'm grappling with elastics and bags trying to bundle and portion our produce.  I'm trying to rip into bags of feed, fighting with gates and pens.  Lots of water is involved: hauling hoses for watering veggies and animals, hauling buckets, trying to get into those chicken waters.  Plus the almost constant hand washing as I go from chicken coop to goat pen to making supper to harvesting vegetables; my hands must get washed fifty times a day!  My nails grow fairly well (must be all that fresh goats milk and fresh veggies!), but are always nicked and the longer they are the harder it is to clean them; finger nail brushes just don't reach down that far!  So, during the season my nails are trimmed very short all the time.

Jacob's Cattle bean, waiting to get shelled.

With the arrival of winter, things ease up a bit.  The only chore left from the 2012 growing season is to shell the beans we grew for soups and stews,  the yummy Jacob's Cattle!  I become a bit more of a house wife in the winter, with lots of soap making, baking and such.  Yes, I still have animals to care for, but with the snow and cold weather they are more confined to the coop and barn.  We're not even milking anymore - the goat mamma's are dried off as we assume they're growing lovely baby goats again and we want all their strength to go to that!  I find, even though it's below freezing, I'm still without gloves a bit as I go about my chores.  It's just impossible to do somethings with gloves on, like finding that little strip to tear off a new bag of feed, or trying to get into one of those pressure-sealed chicken waterers.  So my hands are red, and still a little scratched from playing with Doodles or barn kitties and a myriad other things.  I believe they're not as bad as they could be, partly due to our lovely, gentle goats milk soap and our nourishing handmade lotion bars - which I'm applying constantly!

The nails can't last.  As someone with chickens, goats, cats and dogs nails of any great length are a hazard.  I might poke someones eye, or cause myself great pain by catching a nail and bending it back.  But for the Holiday Season, I'll trim them a bit and nicely, maybe give myself a little manicure.  Maybe between Christmas and New Years I'll even put a coat of paint on them!  And then, they'll be gone again....because soon we'll start growing, getting seeds started inside!

Soapmaking Is Addictive!

Our Simple Goats Milk Soap, in the flat tray molds.
Soaps are frozen in the mold to get the lovely ivory colour
and to keep the milk proteins from scorching.

Farmer Man is calling me the 'Soapmaking Kitchen Witch'! I'm often in the kitchen, melting fats and oils, stirring big pots of goop, geared up in gloves and goggles before mixing lye, pouring out fresh soap into molds.  Our freezer is often crowded with goats milk in ice cubes trays, getting frozen for soap making.  Or, there are molds full of soap taking up space - waiting to be frozen, before being removed from the molds and cut.

I am officially hooked on soap making!  Much of my time is spent in not only making soap, but reading about the properties of various fats and oils, researching natural additives and essential oils, cruising websites and blogs concerning soap, looking at soap recipes and planning how to change them into goats milk recipes, and scrutinizing packaging and displays.  It's almost like a full-time job, without the pay check (so far)!  Of course, I also spend some time each day caring for my little goaties...and the other critters around here.  But I always seem to get back to soap.  I've subscribed to newsletters from soaping websites, I've got books here that I can pick up at any time.  We want, like the food we grow, to offer our customers a wonderful, natural product - without harmful chemicals (aside from the lye, which is potentially harmful only to me during the process of making soap).  I've been deepening my knowledge of essential oils for fragrance - no fake chemical fragrances for us!  I've been learning about the benefits of ground oatmeal, herbs and natural clays and so much more!

The original Hemp Soap, with the dark spot in the middle.
The picture doesn't show it's pale green colour.

I love all the soap I've made and tried, but my favorite so far is our hemp soap.  It's very gentle and moisturizing, lovely sudsy, and doubles as a shampoo very nicely!  I had decided to make it in a loaf mold, to distinguish it from our Simple Soap.  In the loaf mold, however, I got a funny spot in the middle, as you can see in the photo.  Now, to preserve the benefits of milk and to produce a lovely, pale color I freeze all our soap as soon as it is poured in the mold.  In cold process soap making, the molds are usually insulated to encourage heat to build up so that the soap goes through what's called a gel phase.  I'm trying to avoid that gel phase and the resulting heat; so much heat can be produced in the chemical reaction of lye with oils and fats that the milk can be scorched!  This would destroy some of the benefits to the skin of the milk as well as discolour the bars.  To this end, I mostly use flat tray molds, so that the heat doesn't build up and dissipates quickly in the freezer.  But, I didn't have enough tray molds and was trying to produce soap quickly, so I started making the hemp in a loaf mold.  Heat builds up in the middle, even in the freezer, and I get a spot in the middle that has gone through the gel phase.  Doesn't really effect the soap - it's still lovely but I didn't like the look.

The latest Hemp Soap, not frozen.  No centre spot,
but the colour is more yellow/beige.

So, I've tried different things: letting the oils cool longer before adding the lye/goats milk mix.  I've stirred the final soap longer and longer, hoping to release some of the heat before pouring it in the mold.  All, to no avail.  So, I decided to make a batch without putting it in the freezer, insulate the molds on the counter and let the stuff go through the gel phase!  Result: a bar with a different colour and texture, and no spot in the middle!  Now, I really shouldn't judge this new loaf of hemp soap.  It's just come out of the mold and needs to cure for a month or so, during which time it will change.  However, so far I don't like the colour as well - it's a bit more of a yellow/beige/green whereas my first bars were a pale, pale minty green.  The texture is a bit more coarse, it's not as smooth and creamy as the first batches.  And, of course, I haven't used it yet and won't for a number of weeks and that will be the ultimate test.  I'll draw my final conclusions when the soap comes in the shower with me!  Wow, that sounded so....scientific.....

I'm Lovin' a Soap Saver!

On the right, my well-used soap saver!

We've been testing out our soaps the very first minute we can.  No long curing has been going on here!  Anytime I've made something new....we wait the minimum time, test it with a pH strip to make sure it's safe and then into the shower it goes!  We're loving all the carefully chosen recipes, and we're certainly luxuriating in fresh, handmade soap, creamy with loads of fresh goat milk, full of natural glycerin and skin-loving butters and oils.  No dry, detergent-stripped skin around here!

We have noticed that our soaps can get a little soft sitting in the shower.  And I've become aware that that can be a 'thing' with handmade soap.  Glycerin is a natural by-product of soap making; commercial makers often remove it to sell and use elsewhere, leaving a harder bar of soap.  Many commercial soaps are actually just detergent whereas our soap is fats, oils and fresh milk, saponified with lye.  Then, when we don't let them cure for very long before trying them.....well, we have soft soap.  I've been reading, for a while, about soap bags or soap savers or scrubby bags....whatever you want to call them!  On the Web, there are mentions of them on soaping sites, crafty sites and frugal-living sites.  And I'm loving mine!  Highly recommend it!

A soap saver or soap bag serves a couple of purposes.  It is a crocheted bag (preferably handcrafted locally with natural fibres), your bar of soap goes in the bag, then between baths or showers you can hang the bag up.  Thus, you avoid leaving your soap sitting in a puddle and the soap dries out fully.  You can put your smaller pieces of soap into a bag and use them to the last little bit - which is the frugal part.  They are also excellent for exfoliation - like a wash cloth but way more sudsy and easy to handle!  I got mine from local Etsy seller Ritzys All Naturals, who sold her crocheted wares at The Global Market this summer.  (I also got awesome cotton dish clothes from her, which I've used all summer for cleaning up the goats!)  I enquired with some crafty friends, and our CSA friend Sharon made some up for me to sell with our soaps - in some beautiful pastel, multi-coloured cottons!  If you do crochet, apparently a quite easy #DIY project - Sharon whipped up a bunch just watching TV over a couple of nights!  Here's a link to a bunch of free patterns here!

We're so excited to be bringing all our wares to the Art Gallery of South Western Manitoba's 'Gala of Gifts' on December 1st.  Stay tuned for more details!  And, if you're not in the area, watch for our announcement about online shopping...soonish.......

End of the Growing Season....

Everyone enjoys the fountain each summer!

Yesterday, we could park our truck in the garage, for the first time in probably four months!  It means the season is just about finished here in Manitoba.  During growing season, the garage is 'action central', where we gather the harvest, clean, package and sort into CSA boxes or crates for Farmers Markets.  One side of the double garage is always for processing: a couple of long tables with our scales, bags, accessories and space to put down crates of to-be-weighed-and-packaged veggies.  The other side gets tables set up all around, where we lay out all the crates; on Tuesdays and Thursdays for our CSA families, Fridays and Saturdays for The Global Market.  In September, in particular, the garage is crammed with crates and crates of potatoes, onions and garlic drying and curing before being sold or stored, then it's floor is covered with all the Winter Squash we've harvested.  It's hard to walk around let alone park a vehicle!  So, when the truck can finally go back into the garage - we know things are almost finished.

There hasn't been a blog post in a while: the last CSA delivery, the last Global Market all bring a sense of 'end' to us, and we take a little break from writing and, well, talking to people.  We've hardly left the farm for a couple of weeks, just the occasional grocery shop or feed store run!  We're still busy, though, very, very busy!  Farmer Man is still doing clean up/close up.  All the potatoes have been moved to the root cellar, all the Winter Squash is in the sun room.  Anything that can be dug, plucked or pulled has been.  It has largely all been dealt with too; there are just soup beans, Jacob's Cattle, that still need to be shelled, cleaned and stored.  Farmer Man has started some tilling, to clean up some growing beds and he's been cleaning the shop, the garage, the green house and the barn.  He's gathered tomato cages and stakes, picked up hoses, organized tools and a myriad of other small chores.  Work has already started, in a small way, on winterizing the barns, cleaning and updating goat pens and chicken coops.  Those, however, are chores that can wait until the first snow fall forces him off the land.  Me, I've been cooking, baking and making soap - hoping to be ready to do some craft shows this Holiday Season!

One of our final chores, just before freezing weather sets in, is to dismantle the fountain by our patio.  It's a work of art every year - stacked stones, a deep basin of water and a pond pump.  Everyone enjoys it: not only do we enjoy it as we sit on the patio but dogs, cats, chickens, assorted wild birds and even bees and wasps stop in for a drink.  When the fountain is taken down it means that Winter is looming right around the corner.  Farmer Man has threatened a couple of times to take it apart, but I always look at the long range forecast and tell him to leave it a few more days....

Inaugural Batch of Goats Milk Soap!

Everything is at hand: coconut oil, olive oil, frozen
cubes of goats milk, lye and reference!

Like starting any new craft or hobby, the amount of information available on making soap is monumental, and conflicting.  We've been planning on making soap for a couple of years and I have collected a number of books, bookmarked a number of soap websites and watched a great amount of YouTube videos!  The amount of info is dizzying!  As the time grew closer that I'd actually be making soap, I had to get serious.  I've focused on two books, with slightly different methods and ideas.  I've become a big fan of Anne L. Watson and her 'Milk Soapmaking' book, as well as her website.  I have Anne's other soap book and her lotion book, too.  She makes things simple and no-nonsense.  She dispels myths, writes from great experience, streamlines processes and just makes you really believe you can do this.

The other book I'll be using is 'Making Milk Soap from Scratch' by Anne-Marie Faiola of Bramble Berry fame (a huge Internet web site and supplier of ingredients and accessories).  There's a Soap Queen blog, YouTube channel and Bramble Berry's website has tons of info.  Anne-Marie is an expert, with wide-ranging interests and loves to share what she knows about soap making.  I also love her little book because it's got a hemp-goats milk recipe and a shampoo bar recipe!  She does tend to get a little fancier with both ingredients and methods.

Getting organized for my first batch I chose Anne L. Watson's basic recipe of coconut oil, olive oil, milk and lye.  Simple, skin-loving ingredients and I already had coconut oil for my lip balms and lotion bars.  We usually have extra-virgin olive oil around the house, but because I'd like a pale soap I purchased regular olive oil which is golden and not green.  Lye was the only other thing I had to purchase.  Then, I needed to decide on a mold.  Anne L. recommends sheet molds: she says that a loaf-type mold allows too much heat to build up in the middle which can discolour the soap and you should pour milk soaps to only an inch thick.  Anne-Marie Faiola's book doesn't mention this at all but I will eventually try it both ways!  I had decided to use just a matched pair of plastic storage containers for my first batch, rather than buying anything fancy!

Lye reacts chemically with the milk and oils to create soap.  Lye is serious business: it's extremely alkaline and can burn the skin and ruin surfaces.  There are many precautions for handling lye, choosing proper utensils (no aluminum) and staying safe in both books.  I followed everything carefully, got everything organized, appropriate pots and utensils all out, and fats measured and ready to go!  Then, into the long rubber gloves and goggles and I measured out the lye.

Because of the heat that the chemical reaction of milk and lye creates, milk can scorch and be less skin-loving and less lathering.  The soap can darken in color or get splotchy with too much heat.  Anne-Marie's book offers four ways to make milk soaps, and has a great picture of the color differences depending on the method used.  Anne L. Watson's book has two variations and recommends freezing fluid milk for a paler soap.  I'd weighed out the amount of milk needed for the recipe a few days ago and frozen it in ice cube trays, noting that the amount made ten ice cubes.  I just kept freezing my excess milk in the trays and, when weighing out cubes this morning, I needed eleven cubes.  I had a panic moment that maybe frozen milk weighed less than room temperature!  Nobody mentioned that!  Because of the knowledge that I do from all my reading I figured I had a little wriggle room because the recipe is 'super-fatted', and if I was putting in extra milk I'd just have a creamier soap!

So, I began the process of mixing lye granules into the ice cubes, being careful not to splatter.  Much of knowing when the things are 'done' in soap making is by temperature: lye heats up an incredible amount as it combines with the other elements in soap and when temperature levels out the process is finsihed.  Problem: suddenly the digital thermometer I had just tested didn't want to work!  Rather than mess with it, I just stirred for a really long time, saw the mixture thicken up, stirred some more and then declared it mixed!  Anne L. advised pouring the lye/milk solution through a sieve into the oil mixture and I did capture some granules of undissolved lye - so lesson learned!  Stir some more!  Or get a better digital thermometer!

In the mold, ready for the fridge!

Adding the milk/lye mixture to the oils was interesting!  As I stirred it up, it began to thicken quite quickly and I could feel the pot warming up.  Anne L. has good descriptions of what's going to happen and what to watch for.  A stick blender is used in most modern soap making and I carefully started blending (you still don't want to splatter this mixture, the lye could still burn).  The mixture changed from oily, thin and pale greenish-yellow to thick (almost like pudding), creamy smooth and a nice ivory shade.  Again, the thermometer would have been used to gauge when I was done, but I just kept blending and blending until it seemed really thick.  I stopped and hand-stirred for a while because Anne L. says that if the mixture starts to thin out you're not done!  Love that she's gives you 'Plan B' methods!

So into the molds!  Weighed the two containers to make sure they're even.  Tried to smooth out the tops, but that's hard; these will really be the 'sides' of bars so I'd like them smooth but.....According to directions: into the freezer for about half an hour, into the fridge for three more hours, out of the molds in about twenty four hours, cut into bars then cure for at least three weeks!  It's also recommended to test with pH strips to make sure the lye has been fully used up!  Now, it's just the waiting!  Whew, we've been planning for a couple of years - and we've finally made goats milk soap from scratch!

Sneaking Into Soap Making!

I'm really interested, okay obsessed, with soap making these days.  We're hoping to have baby goats and fresh milk in about five months (Go, buckling, go!).  The point of adding the goats to our little farm was to have another revenue stream and soap is the easiest path, without the regulations, restrictions and costs associated with selling milk and cheese.  Now that Farmers Market season and gardening is finished I have the leisure to pursue some extra interests.  Problem is, now is not an ideal time to make soap.  Soap making involves lye, a somewhat dangerous ingredient that must be handled very carefully; whenever it is used very good ventilation is always strenuously recommended.  We are at the time of year when we are constantly and consistently in freezing temperatures - not a great time to have windows open.  Furthermore, our kitchen is built in the middle of the house without any windows, only doors leading to other rooms.  And, the ventilation system is elderly and rather questionable.  May not be a great time to be messing the lye.

Noodles and milk, ready for the oven!

So what's someone who is soap obsessed to do?  Aside from bathing a lot in other people's products?  Well, have you heard of soap noodles?  I first read about noodles in the excellent book 'Soap Maker's Workshop' by Dr. Robert S and Katherine J. McDaniel.  It's soap someone else has made that is then grated or shredded fresh and shipped off to the end user.  The end user just has to melt it and then can finish it at will with added ingredients like fragrances, exfoliates and herbs.  This is a process called re-batching or hand-milling.  Soap makers will re-batch if they think the lye is not completely dissolved or the color or fragrance is not right - it's a way to correct and re-make a batch of soap.  Soap makers will also re-batch to add in herbs, flowers or other things that may be damaged in the high heat of the chemical reaction of lye.  You can make your own noodles by simply grating bar soap.

Going online to find soap noodles proved interesting.  You can buy soap noodles by the shipping container: apparently lots of large commercial soap sellers are not making their own soap from scratch!  I found smaller quantities at the site Soap Crafters, a wholesaler for soap and beauty product supplies.  They had a good assortment including a very simple goat milk noodle!  I ordered and was so excited to receive my box of noodles just before Christmas.  Rather a surprise then, when I went back online to make a note of the ingredients to find the Soap Crafters site closed down because the company had been sold to Elements Bath and Body Works!  It's taken a few weeks, but Elements is finally listing one soap noodle, a Shea butter soap.  Hopefully, Elements will add more noodles in the next little while!

First batch, more a bar than a block.

The process of working with the noodles is really quite simple.  The included instructions say to melt it in the oven, in an appropriate oven-proof container, at 200 F, stirring occasionally, until it resembles a very thick soup.  Pour into your chosen mold, cool, remove from mold, cut and cure for at least two weeks but six weeks for best results.  For my goats milk soap, the instructions called for 1/4 to 1/2 cup of goat milk to be added to one pound of noodles before putting into the oven, and fragrance, exfoliants and herbs are added and stirred in just before pouring into the mold.  The McDaniels' book says you can also do it in the microwave or a crock pot.

First batch involved some of the lovely, fresh goat milk from Brambles Nubian Goat Farm.  I made it just simple and straight forward, and did just one pound, 1/2 cup was all the milk I had to spare.  It took just over an hour to melt down the noodles.  Found my chosen mold, an old plastic bread or loaf holder measuring 4" wide by 9" long, was quite large for one pound of soap and I got about an inch of soap in the bottom of the container!  A few days later, with store-bought goat's milk I did a two pound loaf, which gave me a block of soap about two inches high.  For this one I added lavender essential oil, about ten drops.  Smells very nice, so far!  Yesterday, I did a three pound batch, adding 1/4 cup of honey and a cup of ground oatmeal, as well as the goats milk.  Three pounds made for better sized slices!  Now, for the waiting and the curing....