# a very odd question....help! Lye the culprit? Anyone else encounter this?



## Island Creek Farm (Jun 16, 2010)

I really don't know how to state this...so I'll try to be as non offensive as possible...
I have bought many bars of goats milk soap, and really like it, however, if used, well...south of the border, shall we say, it seems to create fumes (oh god, that sounds awful!). Almost like ammonia is the only way I can describe it. I've also found it to be the case w/glycerine bar soaps, but never w/liquid soaps.

No burning, just the odor. Checked w/my doctor, and _I'm_ fine (lol), she said "just stop using it down there". Now that I'm making it, I'm wondering if it's the lye? Happens w/homemade soaps bought from other soapers, store bought GM soaps, some commercial bar soaps (can't remember which one) and _all_ glycerine (clear) bar soaps.

Can anyone point to a culprit? Am I alone in this?


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## MF-Alpines (Mar 29, 2010)

Wow! Sorry, but I haven't a clue.


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## eam (Aug 22, 2010)

I don't have a clue either, but does it only happen with goat milk soap? Does it happen with non-goat milk homemade soap? They would both have lye...but I suppose it could react differently with milk v. water?


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## Island Creek Farm (Jun 16, 2010)

Yes, it happens with batches made with water too...

lye is my guess, though aren't all commercial soaps made with lye? I honestly haven't looked


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## Guest (Apr 6, 2011)

No clue here either, I have never experienced this problem... Sorry that I cannot help.. maybe your personal body chemistry... hope this does not offend you...


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## Island Creek Farm (Jun 16, 2010)

Nope, not offended! I thought there might have been an issue w/the chemistry and something being wrong, so got it all checked out, but it all came back fine, nothing odd...so maybe it's just me! *sigh*


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## Faye Farms (Sep 14, 2009)

There was a thread on the dish about this so you are not alone. I think it just has to do with personal body chemistries. I have no idea if they came up with a reason on the dish thread as to why.


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## Anita Martin (Dec 26, 2007)

Never heard of this either. Hopefully you get it figured out! I use mine all the time without noticing any odd odor. My partner uses it too and if it created an odor anywhere, he'd be the first to notice and comment


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## Sondra (Oct 25, 2007)

do all or has all the soaps you've tried had some sort of fragrance in them? I know some scents on me smell like urine even on my neck. So try making some with either pure essential oil or no scent at all.


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

I have the sort of same thing as Sondra, some scent smells like cat spray on me, especially lavander scented dryer sheets! Perfumes are worse since they contain so many chemicals.

All bar soap of any kind has lye in it, liquid soap is just detergent so don't bother with the fancy ones and go straight for the big gallon jugs at Sam's and Walmart to wash your cars or laundry  If a chemist took a bar of soap he could not tell you if it contains lard or coconut oil or olive and he could not find lye...the saponification process is final, it completly changes the above into soap. Be it the fat in the goat milk or fat from butters or oils, it's all fat, milk is nothing more than fluid in your bar...everything else is marketing and the power of suggestion. It really would make and excellent swap, make a bar of water soap, same recipe make a milk soap, wrap them exactly with an A and B on the bars and see how many of the swap partners can guess right, it's 50/50. Now floral fragrance, I can use them on my hands and know immediatly, cat spray  Vicki


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## Island Creek Farm (Jun 16, 2010)

I have unscented soaps curing now...I've never tried an unscented bar, so the fragrance may be the issue. I don't have any problems with actual perfumes, though I hardly ever (read, never) wear them. However, when I removed this last batch from the PVC tube, I did get a whiff of the same odor coming off the soap...it dissapated very quickly though. Ammonia-like. It was the wal mart goat's milk batch. I do not smell it on the soaps now that it's cut at ALL, so no idea what it was, maybe the remnant of the chemical process-smell? My water WM batch is soon to be ready, so it will get tried first.


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## Guest (Apr 8, 2011)

Amanda, you will smell the ammonia scent in goat milk soaps very often, its normal when it is first made... it will go away with a good cure.. the soap you bathed with, was it cured good?... I have manymany times tried slivers of soap the same day or next day from making them.. But a good soap needs a few wks cure time.. it not only gets better, it usually smells better too..


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