Why you shouldn’t add breast milk (or any fresh ingredient) to Melt and Pour Soap Bases

Hi Crafters!

There has been an increase in new mothers asking us if they can make breast milk soap with melt and pour soap bases, and this is a great concern because where is this misinformation coming from? We understand that every parent will want the best for their child (we would too, and for the parents as well!), but breast milk + melt and pour soap = a disaster waiting to happen.

You see, any and all fresh ingredients shouldn’t be added into melt and pour soap because these ingredients will not become soap. It’s like adding melted chocolate to your perfectly-baked and smooth vanilla cake. You can either cover your cake with the chocolate, or inject it into the body of the cake, but at the end of the day, the chocolate and the cake are still separate from each other. They can’t seamlessly blend and become one  because the cake has already been made and baked before the chocolate was added.

So, in the case of melt and pour soap (henceforth known as MP Soap), the chemical process of saponification where the ingredients react with lye to become soap has already occurred.* It’s too late to incorporate fresh ingredients like milk, honey and purees as these fresh ingredients will not become soap.

*Note: To know more about saponification and how cold process soap is made, check out this informative blog post of ours! 

If that doesn’t deter you from adding fresh ingredients into MP soap bases (because MP soaps are just so easy and convenient to make!), let us tell you this truth: it will go bad, and when it does, it will be harmful to you.

With the humid weather in Malaysia and even if you use preservatives, the MP soap will eventually turn rancid and foul. Putting your MP soap in the fridge may help a little, but like with every other foodstuff, it will go bad. Milk left in the fridge will become rancid past its expiry date, just like how leaving milk out on your table will cause it to turn bad too. The only difference is the amount of time it takes for it to go bad.

So, fellow crafters, if you prefer MP soaps that have fresh ingredients in them, please purchase those that have already been specially formulated and saponified with those fresh ingredients (like Stephenson Personal Care’s Soap Bases, or our Goat’s Milk MP Soap Base). Alternatively, do explore the wonders of cold process soap! They require more effort to make, but it’s definitely worth it because you can customize every single ingredient added into cold process soaps.

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Thank you for reading! We hope this helps 

Pssst, we're also available at Craftiviti.com!