Yogurt Soaps and Notes

I love yogurt. I think anything with yogurt is better than just plain ol’ milk (ok, not including coffee or tea! 🙂 )

I don’t remember exactly when I started making my own, all I know is that it has been many years and it has really saved me bucks.  I don’t know why it’s double the price of milk when it’s nothing but inoculated milk and ridiculously easy to make. (I will do a separate post on my easy and fool-proof method)

Homemade yogurt and yogurt soap

It was originally for personal consumption, but later on I started using it in my cafe, e.g. in cakes, smoothies, sauces and dressings. At home, I like having it with granola for breakfast, and for a healthy and quick snack or dessert, I mix it with frozen berries drizzled with honey.  Even my not-so-health-conscious husband loves it.

When I feel like pampering myself, I make a face mask by mixing yogurt, finely ground oats, and honey.  I swear it’s the best facial mask ever! It manages to tighten pores while moisturising and hydrating the skin at the same time.  To me at least, I find that my skin looks brighter and more supple after a yogurt mask.

For a skin detox, yogurt with activated charcoal mixed into a thick paste works great! It’s easy to wash off and won’t leave your skin black the way a plain charcoal and water face mask will. (Trust me, I’ve tried it and it took a few washes to completely remove the blackness of the charcoal!)

Even my shi-tzu, Chewie, loves yogurt.  He eagerly licks it as if it were ice cream. I started giving him a spoonful of yogurt once a day after a friend told me that her vet recommended it for a healthier gut.

Chewie’s begging pose.

Chewie eating his yogurt.

Licking the spoon clean.

With the way I just love anything yogurt and having it around as a staple, I don’t know why I’ve waited this long to make yogurt soap.  But thanks to Cee of Oil & Butter Soap , I was inspired to finally go for it.  Check out her gorgeous and elegant Sunflower Yogurt Soap.

After attempting to have colors and designs in my soaps the past couple of months, sometimes succeeding but mostly barely so, this time I wanted something plain and unadorned.  Since I like gelling my soaps, I just added a small amount of titanium dioxide to counter some of the discoloration, but basically I just wanted it to look natural – a bit creamy and off-white.  I normally scent my soaps at 4 – 5% ppo, but for these I just wanted a background scent, so I went down to a bit less than 3%.

From left to right: pear & green tea; lavender; clean cotton & neroli

Soaping with yogurt is quite easy. I did not even bother freezing it, as is usually the case when using dairy in soap. I just started master batching my lye solution (bookmarked for a future post) so I simply blended the yogurt with the oils before adding in the lye solution. Yogurt itself does not accelerate trace, so it all depends on your fragrance or essential oils.

After cutting the soaps, I noticed a sour-ish smell but that went away after a day or so.  I can’t wait to try these soaps!  If it’s any indication, I washed my hands with the scraped bits left on the liner and the lather was just incredible!