Prepare the "At Trace" add-ins and set aside

When the soap comes to trace, there are a few add-ins. Prepare them now and set aside until they are needed much later.

in a small bowl or ramekin dish, add 1 tsp of warm filtered water and 1 tsp of honey (preferably raw, local honey) and mix or stir as well as you can.

using a small blender, grind the oatmeal in to a powder and set aside.

in another small bowl or dish, add the jojoba or olive oil and set aside.

Measuring all ingredients first!

Take time to be somewhat organized in soap making.

Now is a good time to bring out the frozen goat's milk ice cubes to sit and thaw slightly while you prepare other ingredients.

First, measure every single one of the ingredients needed for this recipe in separate bowls.

After all ingredients are measured out, add the 22.50 oz of olive oil and the coconut oil measurement into a stainless steel stock or soup pot and add to the stove on medium low heat. Allow the coconut oil to fully melt. Turn off the heat and remove the pot from the eye to rest while you move on to the next step.

Again, reference how to handle lye and use all safely precautions for this part.

Frozen goat's milk and lye

To allow the lye to heat up slowly and not scorch the milk, slowly add a little bit of lye at a time to the frozen goat's milk. Perhaps eyeball about 3 tablespoons worth at a time.

Stir often to allow the lye to incorporate with the frozen milk. As you notice liquid forming in the bowl, add a bit more lye and continue to stir. Do this on repeat until all lye is in with the milk.

Oils and Lye Temperatures

Using a thermometer, measure the temperature of both the oils and lye, making sure to wipe the stick between bowls if using that type of candy thermometer like I do.

When the temperatures are between 95 and 85 degrees, you can add the lye and milk mixture to the oils and begin blending with an immersion blender.

*Note: once while making a batch, the lye-milk mixture's temperature was 73 degrees. That seemed quite low to me so I used a double broiler method to sit the lye-milk mixture in to reheat to about 84 degrees then mixed the lye-milk with the oils. While I reheated the mixture, I made sure to continue to stir it in hopes the milk would not scorch and it did not.

Bringing soap to trace

Use the immersion blender to incorporate the lye-milk and oils for saponification to occur for a series of 5 sets of 1 minute of blending, 2 minutes of rest or until the soap reaches light trace.

You will know the soap is at light trace when you drizzle the soap mixture over the surface of the soap in the pot and it leaves behind a trail or a trace that doesn't easily go away. It sits right on top.

Pour and sit

Once all ingredients are well incorporated, carefully pour the soap into the soap loaf.

Allow the soap to sit uncovered for about 30 minutes. Sometimes when adding honey to soap, the sugars can begin to heat up the soap mixture again. This can cause a ballooning or volcano of the soap in the mold.

Letting the soap sit out to cool for about half an hour before covering it to sit overnight will reduce the chances of an unsightly soap.

After about 30 minutes, cover the soap loaf with parchment paper then a towel and allow it to rest in a safe place for 18-24 hours.

Cut and cure

The next day or about 18-24 hours later, it is now safe to cut the soap into bars to sit and cure for about 4 weeks, perhaps a little more if the soap bars still feel soft.

I choose to cut my soap bars at a 2.5 on the cutter that came with my soap loaf kit. This yields about a 4.5 oz bar of soap.

Curing may take 4-6 weeks when soap bars are allowed to sit in a ventilated basket or on shelving. If ventilated options are not available, be sure to flip the soap bars every other day to allow full and complete curing and proper air flow.