Pen in Hand: Making custom soap, goat’s milk is key ingredient
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Sheree Tompkins of Mariah Country Soaps, a regular at the weekly Farmer’s Market, taught a class on soap making sponsored by the Tehachapi Heritage League.
Lucy Rodriguez was one of 30 class participants who had fun making their own custom bars of goat’s milk soap.
Class attendees used their creative impulses to make a variety of colorful bars of soap.
Gale Grasse Sprague holds a Nigerian Dwarf goat from the Tompkins’s Mariah Country Farm in Antelope Valley. This small breed makes great pets but are also good dairy goats.
Custom soap designs included ones with stars in honor of the approaching Fourth of July.
There was a lot of good clean fun going on in front of the Tehachapi Museum on June 19 as 30 participants took part in a soap making class, creating colorful bars of soap whose main ingredient was goat’s milk.
The class was taught by Sheree Tompkins, who owns a farm in Antelope Valley with her husband Bill. They raise goats and fresh produce, and Sheree is a familiar sight at the weekly Farmer’s Market in Downtown Tehachapi, where she sells her homemade soap and a variety of fragrances and oils.
Goat’s milk is a popular ingredient in artisanal soaps because it is a natural emollient and produces creamy, moisturizing soap that’s good for cleaning and hydrating skin. Handmade goat’s milk soap typically doesn’t contain some of the harsh chemicals found in commercial soaps, and many people with sensitive skin prefer soap made from goat’s milk because it doesn’t dry out or irritate their skin.
Sheree and Bill brought a couple of adorable young Nigerian Dwarf goats with them to Sunday’s class. This breed of goat is popular for pets because of their gentleness and small size, but they also produce 1 to 8 pounds of milk a day so they are also used as dairy goats – Sheree says she is currently milking one Nigerian Dwarf doe that produces a half a gallon of milk a day, which is comparable to the output of a full-size goat. The Tompkins also have large American LaMancha dairy goats among the 30 goats in their herd at Mariah Country Farm.
The soap making class at the museum was a beginner’s class using the “melt and pour” method, in which soap base was heated to 100-120 degrees Fahrenheit to bring it to a liquid form, then class participants added their own food coloring and fragrances to customize the soap. The thickening soap was then poured into molds to cool and harden. The molds were sprayed with rubbing alcohol to help prevent the formation of bubbles in the soap.
Students used their own creative impulses to create a variety of interesting bars of soap, from red, white and blue patriotic soap to swirled psychedelic designs. Regardless of the colors, though, all of the soaps will produce silky goat’s milk lather and get their users clean.
With the success of this class, which was sold-out, there are plans to have another soap making class that will teach the more complex “cold process,” so if you are interested in learning to make soap and missed this one, you’ll have another chance.
This class was one of many programs offered this year by the Tehachapi Heritage League, which is conducting more activities and outreach events than ever before in the more than 35-year history of the organization. With the Tehachapi Museum expanded and renovated and the Errea House Museum completed, the Heritage League has become an important component of civic life in Downtown Tehachapi, not only preserving Tehachapi’s past but also engaging with the present and enhancing the future.
Keep your eyes open for upcoming THL events, including the Kern Festival of Writers on August 6, and visit the museum – new exhibits now appear regularly, and the museum is now part of the monthly First Friday art event in Downtown Tehachapi.
Have a good week.
JON HAMMOND has written for the Tehachapi News for more than 30 years. Send e-mail to: tehachapimtnlover@gmail.com
