Breastmilk soap

Do you have leftover breastmilk that cannot be consumed anymore? You can make soap with it and it is super easy! Keep reading to learn how I made my breastmilk soap.

One year ago I was back to work after my maternity and parental leave. My baby was almost 1yo and I was still breastfeeding him super frequently (well… I still do, and he’s almost two tbh), so I pumped frequently during the first few months, to keep the supply and to prevent mastitis or clogged ducts. I was never a person to pump a lot of milk, but anyway I ended up getting around 300ml left because at some point my baby stopped drinking it in the crèche, he preferred to wait for me and get the milk straight from the source. Those bags stayed in the freezer for almost a year, until my husband decided it was time to defrost the freezer and clean it up. Which was good because it forced me to actually me this breastmilk soap, which I have been wanting to for months.

Breastmilk is great for the skin, so making soap with it makes only sense! It is very good for atopic skins, eccema, dryness, etc. Specially here in Luxembourg that we have a very hard water with lots of minerals, which is not so great for people with sensitive skin.

How I made breastmilk soap

It is so easy that I wouldn’t even call it a recipe! You need to get base soap, I got one with shear butter on it from Amazon. I got 1kg and used around 400g. Since these soaps are not for selling but for home use, I did not worry that they would be perfect, but from other women’s experiences I would recommend to use maximum the same amount of soap and breastmilk, because otherwise they would be too soft.

What you need

Base soap
Breastmilk at room temperature
Silicone molds
Optional: some essential oils

How to make the soap

Melt the base soap. You can do it on the microwave, and I would recommend you to cut it in little squares so it will melt faster and more evenly.
Pour the milk inside the same recipent.
Add the essential oils if you want, around 10 drops. I used mandarine, you can use also lavender for instance, those are OK for children.
Pour the soap into the molds.

I used different sizes of molds: the big ones are for muffins and I got them at Action, and the small ones are meant for ice and I got them at Ikea.

Downside of the small ones: they are a bit hard to clean after you made the soap, as you can see in the photo 🙂

I placed also the molds on top of cutting boards, so it was easier to handle them and put them on the fridge. I left them on the fridge until they were solid, and then I took them off the molds.

Then I put some on a Tupperware and left them on the fridge to take them when I need one, and I am going to freeze another bunch so I can still have them available also way in the future!

As you can see, making them is super easy. Thanks to my breasfeeding friends and to Work and Mother for their inspiration to do this!

If you don’t have breastmilk but you still would like to make a homemade soap that is easy on the skin, you can add oatmeal! Better to add it as flour, because otherwise it might become more of an exfoliating soap.. which could be what you want, but kids might not love the feeling.