After a short break from making soap, we were back at this past week. With Nathan and Kay gone all weekend for Pony Club Rally, Kyle and I had some time to work in the soap room. 

Goat milk soap expert Jamie Cunningham specializes in creating premium goat milk soaps and lotions from Whitetail Lane Farm in the rolling idyllic countryside of State College, Pennsylvania. We sat down with her to discuss new soaps, upcoming events, and why Monkey Farts is a popular variety of her premium line of goat milk soaps.

You always seem to have something new in the shop. Are you carrying any new varieties of goat milk soap currently?

Jamie: We have 3 new soaps coming out in July that can be found at the People’s Choice Festival – Coconut Lime (pictured above), Vanilla Fig and Rustic Woods. All three are made with our same great nourishing goat milk soap recipe that contains enormous amounts of vitamins and minerals that keep your skin healthy and moisturized.

You offer a wide variety of different goat milk soaps. What are 3 of your most popular soaps?

Jamie: Our 3 most popular goat milk soaps are Energy, Monkey Farts, and Lemongrass Sage. Energy is scented with a stimulating blend of citrus that is refreshing in the morning. It has been a best seller since we introduced it.  Monkey Farts is a blend of tropical fruits and banana that kids, adults and the young at heart love. This confetti soap smells just as good as it looks.  Lemongrass Sage is a refreshing lemon and sage soap that includes poppy seeds for an exfoliant. It is great for the laundry room or mudroom sink to get those working hands clean. All our goat milk soaps are colorful, smell great and are great for your skin - and that is why people love them. They are high quality, moisturizing, and long lasting with luxurious creamy lather.

Do you have any plans for new varieties of goat milk soap to produce in the future? 

Jamie: We do have some exciting plans to make a line of all natural essential oil soaps. Scented with essential oils and colored with plant based colorants, we hope to have this line out for the holiday season.

Happy goats make better milk - describe the life of a goat at Whitetail Lane Farm.

Jamie: Our dwarf Nigerian goats are more like pets to us than they are ‘producers of goat milk’. Our goats are free to roam our property during the day, grazing on our lush pastures and eating brush in the fence rows. Their favorite treats are poison ivy and raspberry bushes. At the day’s end they are brought into their pasture for the night to protect them from any predators that might be around. They are given fresh hay and water daily. Pregnant/nanny does and goat kids are given grain. The goats have a posh life at our farm and are happy to greet visitors - they love attention from anyone that is willing to give it.

What’s in Whitetail Lane Farm’s goat milk soap?

Jamie: We’re often asked how much milk is in each bar of our goat milk soap. There is more than 1 ounce (1.18 ounces to be exact) of goat milk in each of our bars of goat milk soap! That is a lot of goodness benefiting your skin! 

We make all of our goat milk soaps completely from scratch, using raw ingredients and recipes that we have created. All of our products come with the ingredients listed on each individual package.

Here are some of the ingredients used to make a bar of Whitetail Lane Farm’s goat milk soap:

Olive Oil - Extremely Moisturizing, makes a nice slippery lather, has low cleansing properties that make the bar nice an mild for those with sensitive skin.

Coconut Oil - Provides lots of lather and large fluffy bubbles, is high cleansing and makes the bar hard

Palm Oil - makes a nice mild lather and helps to make a hard bar. All of our palm is from sustainable farms in the USA. 

Avocado Oil - a rich moisturizing oil that is high in vitamin E and other vitamins and minerals.

Castor Oil - A thick clear oil that provides a nice creamy lather.

Shea Butter - adds a lotion like lather, heavy duty moisturizer

Goat Milk - Goat’s milk is a natural emollient that helps soothe and moisturize the skin. It contains vitamins A, B6, B12 and E. Goat’s milk has 3 times more beta-casein than cow’s milk. Caseins are easily absorbed into the skin and allow for quick hydration of dry skin. It adds lots of vitamin and nutrients and makes a fantastic, creamy, moisturizing soap. 

We use both fragrance oils in our soaps as well as essential oils too. Essential oils are all natural oil extracts from plant matter and many are thought to have therapeutic qualities. Fragrance oils are synthetic oils that are created in a lab to mimic other smells. All our fragrances are Phthalate Free and skin safe.

What’s the number one reason to try goat milk soap?

Jamie: We usually answer this question with ‘Why not?’ We believe that once you use our goat milk soap you will not go back to any of those other soaps. When we started making our soaps it took many months perfecting our current recipe to get a hard bar that was nourishing for the skin and fun to look at. We use 100% goats milk in our bars instead of water. Using a high concentration of goats milk allows our recipe to be superior, highly nourishing with an amazing creamy lather.  

Will you be appearing at any festivals this summer?

We will be at the People’s Choice Festival in Boalsburg,  which is in July. We will also be at Hartslog Days in Alexandria, PA, and the stocking stuffer event at the Centre County Historical Society. Our biggest is our Annual Open House the Saturday After Thanksgiving.

To learn more about how you can purchase premium goat milk soaps and lotions, visit Whitetail Lane Farm’s website.

Why Handmade Matters!

I found this article on the Handcrafted Soap Guilds Facebook Page and had to share it with all of you. 

Why Handmade Matters

May 5, 2016 by Donna Maria Coles Johnson In Handmade Business 2

Ingredients We Use and Why we use them

Oils that we use in our soap and why we use them:

Olive Oil - Extremely Moisturizing, makes a nice slippery lather, has low cleansing properties that make the bar nice an mild for those with sensitive skin.

Coconut Oil - Provides lots of lather and large fluffy bubbles, is high cleansing and makes the bar hard

Palm Oil - makes a nice mild lather and helps to make a hard bar. All of our palm is from sustainable farms in the USA. 

Avocado Oil - a rich moisturizing oil that is high in vitamin E and other vitamins and minerals.

Castor Oil - A thick clear oil that provides a nice creamy lather.

Shea Butter - adds a lotion like lather, heavy duty moisturizer

Liquids we use in our soap and why we use them :

Goat Milk - Goat’s milk is a natural emollient that helps soothe and moisturize the skin. It contains vitamins A, B6, B12 and E. Goat’s milk has 3 times more beta-casein than cow’s milk. Caseins are easily absorbed into the skin and allow for quick hydration of dry skin. It adds lots of vitamin and nutrients and makes a fantastic, creamy, moisturizing soap. 

Here is a great article about using goat milk soap. 

Other Additives we sometimes use and why we use them :

Colloidal Oatmeal -  micro-fine, ground oatmeal is not rough or abrasive. In lotion it can create a barrier over the skin making it a great additive for those with extra dry skin. We use this in all of our soaps. 

Kaolin Clay - a mild, white, fluffy clay. It's good for light masks or scrubs, and gives a silkiness and creaminess to soaps.

Poppy Seeds - used as an exfoliatant and to make soaps look pretty.  

 How we make our soap!