Without further ado, here are some amazing Handmade Soaps to get you in the Holiday / Christmas Spirit! (wish we had some Hanukkah soaps in here!)

Ginger L’Orange Gourmet Soap By AbbeyJames

Handmade Christmas Soap by Belle Journee’

Reindeer Games By Forget Me Not Soap Shop

Icy Peppermint Goat Milk Soap By A Bath Shoppe

Chai Latte Soap By Summerfield Soaps

Fresh Snow Scented Christmas Tree Soap by: Pink’s Pleasures

Holiday Eggnog Soap By: BubblesUpByBethieB

Fir Needle Vegan Handmade Soap by DeShawnMarie

Christmas / Holiday Pointsettia Soap Favor / Gift By: EnchantingSoapFavors

Cookies for Santa Shea Butter Soap By LatherTech

Elf Sweat Cupcake Soap By: Sherrilenett

Stocking Stuffer Christmas Mini’s By Tiera Steele

Festive Orange Spice or Christmas Glisten By Celine Blacow

Sweet Treat Gift Sets – By Anita Nickens

Cravings By K-Cherie’ Soaps

Other Posts You May Find Helpful:

• Amazing Summer Soap Making Ideas!
• Winter 2011-2012 Soap Making Showcase Series
• Gorgeous Summer Soap Making to Inspire!
• The Biggest, Baddest Soap Making Blog EVER!

Jamaica Hands Glow Handmade Soap. By VistahSoap

Ingredients: Olive Oil, Organic Palm Oil,Coconut Oil,  Distilled Water, Sodium Hydroxide,  Sunflower oil, Canola Oil, Castor Oil, Fragrance Oil, Mineral Oxide,  Blueberry seeds, Strawberry seeds, Kiwi seeds, Tussah Noil Silk.

Summer Melon Berries Shea Butter and Olive Oil Soap By: Kimberquinn

Ingredients: Coconut Oil, Palm Oil, Safflower Oil, Glycerine (kosher, of vegetable origin), Purified Water, Sodium Hydroxide (saponifying agent), Sorbitol (moisturizer), Sorbitan oleate (emulsifer), Soy bean protein,Shea butter,Olive oil

Cute Creamsicles! By Annakatesoaps

Salty Watermelon Soaps – Limited Edition Glycerine Soaps By: Soothing Suds

Summer Sherbet Soap Splendor By: Ajsweetsoap

Blueberry Smooth Hand-crafted Soap By: Tallulah’s Soaps

Ingredients: vegetable glycerin, palm oil, coconut oil, purified water, fragrance, herbs, botanicals, mica powders, pigment oxides, love

Jubilee Handmade Soap, Green Apple and French Lavender By: Alchemic Muse

Ingredients: Olea Europaea (Olive) Oil, Cocos Nucifera (Coconut) Oil, Distilled Water, Sodium Hydroxide, Ricinus Communis (Castor) Seed Oil, Oryza Sativa (Rice) Bran Oil, Theobroma Cacao (Cocoa) Seed Butter, Mangifera Indica (Mango) Seed Butter, Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea Butter), Lavandula Officinalis (French Lavender) Oil, Fragrance, Chromium Oxide Green, Ultramarines

Coconut Isle Cold Process Soap Bar By: Lippincott Soap Co

Ingredients: water, olive oil, coconut oil, palm oil, canola oil, lye, *fragrance, shea butter, castor oil, coloring

Hula Girl Cold Process Soap Bar By: Lippincott Soap Co.

Ingredients: water, olive oil, coconut oil, palm oil, canola oil, lye, *fragrance, shea butter, castor oil, coloring

Heirloom Tomato Soap By: SunBasilGarden

Slice of Summer – Home Made Cold Process Soap Tropical Island and Raspberry with Strawberry Seeds By:MoonShineSoaps

Ingredients: olive oil, coconut oil, essential oils, lard, tallow, distilled water, rain water, sodium hydroxide, botanicals

Other Posts You May Find Helpful:

• Christmas Holiday Soap Making Showcase
• Amazing Halloween Soap Making Ideas!
• Gorgeous Summer Soap Making to Inspire!
• How to Make Goat’s Milk Soap – A Photo Tutorial

Here at Cibaria, we love planning our activities and promotions around what our customers actually need during those special times of the year. We want to know what kind of things you have in store for your special occasion soap making?

Do you plan out ahead of time what soap you’re going to make for the following year?

Are you kind of winging-it?

Do you have new areas of soap making that you’re looking to try out, but aren’t sure how it’ll work out?

We’d love to hear from you – and we’re sure the other soap makers that read our blog will add a great amount of their own ideas on things they’ve already implemented to become a more organized soap maker!

Note: The Soap photo above is an Olive Oil and Shea Butter Soap made by Catherine Filippelli

Other Posts You May Find Helpful:

• Christmas Holiday Soap Making Showcase
• A Basic Soap Making Recipe
• The Biggest, Baddest Soap Making Blog EVER!
• Cibaria Soap Supply Gets Social

Here is my technique. You can use your own recipe and then change the water to milk or you can use this recipe that is similar to mine from Snowdrift Farms. You didn’t think I would actually give away my “top secret” recipe, did you?

Shea & Goats Milk Soap

by Snowdrift Farms
Makes about 5 lbs. of soap

Oils by weight:
15 oz. sunflower seed oil, high oleic
15 oz. sweet almond oil
8 oz. avocado oil
3 oz. babassu oil
7 oz. coconut oil, 76 degree
3 oz. palm oil
4 oz. shea butter Lye/NaOH/Sodium Hydroxide by weight: 7.4 oz. Water/Milk by volume: 20 fluid ounces

Optional:
1-2 teaspoons titanium dioxide
1 teaspoon pigment
2.5-3 ounces essential oil or fragrance oil

I am assuming you know how to make cold process soap. I should not have to remind you to use proper safety techniques and protective gear, but I will. Please use them. Here’s a link to general lye safety. And here is a link to soap making safety tips.

Now let’s begin.

1. You need frozen goat’s milk. A local farm or a health food store should be able to supply you with goat’s milk. I use raw or unpasteurized goat’s milk. Some methods suggest freezing the milk in an ice cube tray with each cube containing 1 ounce. This is too much work and the milk melts too fast (at least in my S. FL home it does). Note their are 20 ounces of fluid necessary for this recipe. I use 16 ounces of goat’s milk (there is a reason for this – it does not matter your ratio, but you need some water). Measure the 16 oz. and pour into a freezer ziploc bag. Seal and freeze overnight. Since I make a lot of goat’s milk soap, I buy a lot of milk and freeze it all at once. The raw milk does not stay fresh long, so freeze it right away.

2. Melt your oils together.

Place in a glass or plastic container and allow to cool to 115-120 degrees.

3. Have your scent and color ready to go. I have two sets of photos in this tutorial. One is showing what will happen if you add nothing. The other shows my Orange Blossom soap in a light peach shade.

4. Fill your sink with a few inches of water and add a lot of ice.

You want the temperature to be about 5 degrees cooler than the oils. If it’s not exactly 5 degrees cooler, don’t panic. You definitely want the milk cooler than the oils and the temp of the milk should be 105-115 degrees. Sometimes, the milk doesn’t melt completely when the temperature reaches the desired degrees. Don’t worry. It’s the temp that is important, not whether or not the milk has melted. Note the color has gotten lighter. It’s now a creamy color.

8. Pour the lye mixture into the oils, as soon as both temperatures are in the right range. Note that my milk is still in an icy chunk. It will melt while mixing the oil with the lye.

Sometimes when you add the milk mixture to the oils and start to belnd it, it will immediately thicken and look a little ricey. Don’t panic. Your temps were probably a little off. Just blend with the stick blender. It is falsely tracing and will correct itself as you blend it. It should self-correct suddenly within a minute or two of blending.

Ahh! Now the color is getting pretty light.

When you reach light trace, which typically takes just a couple of minutes, add your color. I added my peach color in this picture.

Pour into your molds or log. Here again is my peach colored soap. It will darken a little as it solidifies.

10. Put some saran wrap over exposed portions of soap to prevent ash. There is no need to cover the soap or to place it in the freezer. Just put the saran wrap on it and leave it alone for 24 hours.

Here you can see 3 different soaps. The white is Sweet Jasmine, the peach is Orange Blossom, and the tan one in the back is Brigid’s Amber. It smells awesome but will darken to a mid brown due to the ingredients (surprisingly, not vanilla).

Here is a white bar of Sweet Jasmine.

Some people have the philosophy that milk soap should not gel and needs to be placed in the freezer. This is not necessary using this method. Do not fear gelling. I have never had a problem and my house sometimes gets up to 85 degrees.

This is the Sweet Jasmine curing.

I paint most of my Celtic soaps with mica. This is the finished Orange Blossom with some gold mica. Note the light color. Your milk soaps do not need to be dark, although I do make some dark soaps in the colors I choose, but not by scorching my milk.

Hope this tutorial helps some of you that are interesting in a goat’s milk adventure. If you have questions, please post them here and I will be happy to answer them.

I have another tutorial coming soon for alcoholic soap. No, not soap for alcoholics, soap made with alcohol. I make some with beer and whiskey. You could also use wine and other hard liquors.

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Tutorial and photos by Erica Pence, owner and handcrafted soap maker at Bonnie Bath, and author of the Bonnie Bath Blog.

Bio: Owner of The Bonnie Bath Co. and maker of handcrafted soaps, bath and body products and candles. Column Editor for the Saponifier Magazine and Forum Moderator and volunteer for the Handcrafted Soapmakers Guild as well as the Scottish American Society of South Florida. Regional webmaster for FUSTA. Happily married with one beautiful child.

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Other Posts You May Find Helpful:

• Christmas Holiday Soap Making Showcase
• Amazing Summer Soap Making Ideas!
• Cibaria Soap Supply Gets Social
• Looking Ahead in Soap Making

If you’ve been to our online store, and have made a purchase – we’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback! Do feel free to Contact Us and toss in your two cents! It is greatly appreciated, as we fine-tune our soap oil buying experience!

A short and un-related anouncement:

Cibaria is Currently Selling a Warehouse in Southern California

If you’re in the Southern California area, and have been looking to expand into a Warehouse, this could be a great opportunity. We have a 37,000 sq ft. warehouse/office for sale in Fontana – (very close to the 10 fwy). It really is the best buy in the area right now. You can view more about this at So Cal Warehouse For Sale.com

Organic Certified

If you are soap maker who creates your soaps using Organic soap base oils, then this news is good for you! We are now Certified Organic with Organic Certifiers. You can view this information, and our other certifications at the About Us section of the Cibaria Soap Supply website.

New Blog Design Coming Soon!

We’re aiming to customize the look and feel of this blog, add more interative features, and make it more of a ‘community’ driven place. Keep your eyes open for a slick new layout, tons of great content, and many featured handcrafted soap makers  — Inspiration!

Soap Base Oil

Soap Oil

Other Posts You May Find Helpful:

• Gorgeous Summer Soap Making to Inspire!
• Christmas Holiday Soap Making Showcase
• Amazing Summer Soap Making Ideas!
• A Basic Soap Making Recipe