New Baby Soap

I have been playing around with some ideas for a really gentle soap that is specially designed for baby skin. I truly love the Naked Shea soap, but I wanted something even gentler. I wanted something that was soothing, creamy, and skin loving.

Here is what I decided I needed:

• Aloe-who doesn't remember their mom keeping an aloe plant in the house and any time there was anything wrong, you got rubbed down with it?
• Goat milk-gives the soap a rich, creamy texture and adds to the skin-softening properties.
• Oatmeal-good for all sorts of skin problems, so it is going to be good for babies too.
• Super skin conditioning oils: I went with avocado, shea butter, and cocoa butter. How luxurious are those together? Even without all the other goodies, that would make a great bar of soap.

I actually decided to use really fresh aloe, so I bought a small plant to be used for this purpose. I pulled it, washed it really well, the pulled the leaves off and dumped them in a blender. I then ran all the juice and pulp through a strainer to get the "skin" out. I didn't add the aloe to the lye mixture, but added it to the oils after adding the lye. I don't know if that makes a difference, but it is worth a shot.

I creamed the colloidal (finely ground) oatmeal into the goat milk before freezing, which I'm not sure was a good idea. While mixing goat milk and lye makes a stinky orange mess anyway, I think adding the oatmeal early also resulting in the orange speckles in the soap. It doesn't smell bad, so I don't think it is going to effect the quality of the final soap.

I melted the shea and cocoa butters over low heat and added them at light trace. I've noticed that sometimes when I used butters, the final bars can turn out grainy, so I treated these with the same care I would use if they were going into a balm.

I used a round mold because it seems that baby soap should be round. I don't know why I decided this, but I did. I'm glad I did, I think it looks perfect! I can't wait to be able to use one of these and give you some feedback on them. I probably wouldn't be so anxious if my target for this soap wasn't to very precious and delicate!

I don't have much of a name for it right now. The best I have is Baby Soap (oh yes, I'm that original) or Milk and Aloe Baby Soap (even better!). If you have any ideas, feel free to share.