Article Topics:
Lactose Intolerance, Acne, and Other Concerns
Why Use Any Milk In Soap?
Soaps enriched with pure, raw, farm-fresh milk are creamier and more nourishing than those made with water or powdered milk. Milk’s natural abundance of fats, vitamins, minerals, and proteins give skin-renewing moisture and nourishment.
How Your Skin & Scalp Absorbs Nutrients
Have you ever seen a nicotine patch and wonder how they work for smokers trying to quit? Or how merely touching a toxic tree frog can lead to death? It’s because your skin and scalp can absorb what you put on them!
Your skin is your body’s largest organ by far, with a total average area of about 20 square feet! That’s a lot of avenues for nutrients to reach your body… or to get slowly poisoned by toxic body products. Perma-Earth offers many of the best body care products to “Feed Your Hair And Skin From The Outside-In.®“
Nutrients follow three pathways through the skin, according to the CDC.
- Intercellular pathways. There are spaces between your skin’s cells through which nutrients follow deeper into the skin. Along the way, your skin’s outer layer can absorb some of the nutrients. Like in our buttermilk soaps that contain Vitamin D3, Retinol-A, Hyaluronic Acid, Alpha-Hydroxy Protein Acids, and more beauty-promoting goodies!
- Permeation. Nutrients can pass from cell to cell in your epidermis. When the outermost cells take on some nutrients, they pass some of those to the next innermost cells.
- Hair follicles and glands. Nutrients that permeate slowly into your skin can reach the hair follicles or glands deeper into your skin’s layers. This is the most difficult way your skin can absorb nutrients because your follicles are much deeper in the skin.
Natural, wholesome ingredients are recognized as safe by the body, and can be absorbed much deeper and easier. The famously beautiful Queen Cleopatra knew this, as she bathed in buttermilk daily.
But Why Buttermilk?
We use traditional grass-fed buttermilk in our body products. Buttermilk is simply cultured raw milk straight from the animal, in our case, a grass-fed cow. Our grass-fed and pasture-raised jersey cow sources produce very high fat whole buttermilk, and an abundance of it! This is one reason why we choose grass-fed cow’s milk over goat’s, sheep, or any other milk.
Lactose intolerance does not affect the epidermis, this type of intolerance only affects the digestive system. Unless one has a topical allergy to dairy, it is safe for lactose-intolerant individuals to use our products externally.
Fats are what protect the skin, keeping it nourished, healthy-looking, and moisturized. Many vitamins are only soluble with certain fats (called fat-soluble vitamins like A and D). This makes some nutrients completely useless without enough fats for your body to use them.
Full-fat buttermilk is not only high in fat-soluble vitamins, but particularly high in multiple different proteins too, like yogurt! Buttermilk and yogurt are similar, but farm-fresh raw buttermilk is higher in many different proteins versus store-bought buttermilk or yogurt. Store-bought yogurt or buttermilk sits is pasteurized and then cultured with only one or two different probiotics.
On the other hand, farm-fresh, raw cultured dairy products have dozens of naturally-occurring probiotics. Along with alpha-hydroxy acids like lactic acid and hyaluronic acid which promote cell renewal and rejuvenation. It improves beauty factors like brightness, tone, and complexion maintenance. Buttermilk is higher in lactic acid than any other milk – another reason why we choose this hand-cultured moo milk!
Cow’s Milk Vs…
These days, the dairy aisle is saturated with options—and we don’t just mean 2 percent or whole. There’s soy, almond, cashew, rice, oat, hemp, camel…you get the idea. In a world full of milks (and milk posers), it can be overwhelming to educate yourself on which is better?
As many have stated before, the original milk (real animal’s milk) is top tier in terms of nutrient profile perfection. This is because of the total nutrient density, quantity, and quality of complete proteins, fats, vitamins and minerals. Plant “mylks” (which contain anti-nutrients like phytic acid and oxalates that leach minerals and vitamins from the body) can’t compare.
Can’t you turn any raw animal’s milk into a cultured buttermilk? Yes you can, but let’s summarize!
Our local sources of grass-fed cow’s milk is higher in fat than any other local and freshly available milk. There is also an abundance of it for more reliable supplies and reasonable prices. This is important for skin and scalp health as well as nutrient absorption and utilization.
Buttermilk is higher in lactic acid than any other fresh milk due to the fermentation process. Acids help lower the pH of products – making them more gentle and beneficial for the skin and scalp.
Nutrient Profiles of Milks
You know the saying that milk is the near-perfect food? They weren’t lying.
Milk is a “complete protein,” containing all nine essential amino acids necessary for life and health. Not to mention all of the essential Omega 3, 6, & 9 fatty acids in balanced proportions.
And buttermilk is even better!
Nutrient Profile of Whole Buttermilk in 1 cup (8 fl oz):
- Fats: 8 grams
- Omegas 3, 6, 9
- Proteins: 8 grams
- Tryptophan
- Threonine
- Isoleucine
- Leucine
- Lysine
- Methionine
- Phenylalanine
- Valine
- Histidine
- Retinol-A (Vitamin A): 115 UG, 17% of the Daily Value (DV)
- Calcium: 282 mg, 28% DV
- Sodium: 257 mg, 17% DV
- Riboflavin (B2): 38% DV
- Vitamin B12: 22% DV
- Pantothenic acid (B5): 13% DV
- Potassium: 331 mg, 14% DV
- Vitamin D3: 127 UG, 26% DV
- Vitamin C: 4% DV
- Phosphorous: 208 mg, 30% DV
- Niacin (B3): 2% DV
- Vitamin E: 1% DV
- Vitamin K: 1% DV
- Copper: 5% DV
- Folate (B9): 3% DV
- Vitamin B6: 7%
- Magnesium: 25 mg, 8% DV
- Zinc: 12% DV
- Thiamine (B1): 11% DV
- Selenium: 17% DV
- Manganese: 1%
In summary, you just can’t beat whole buttermilk’s nutrient profile compared to other milks!
What about goat’s milk?
Many people have “herd” that goat milk has more benefits than cow’s, so we dug deeper for the answer. It turns out, neither milk is healthier or more nutritious than the other. This is because the nutrition content is almost the same (depending on the source, season, diet, processing, etc.) But goat milk can be a better choice for the digestive system as it has less lactose. However, this doesn’t pertain to the integumentary system (hair, skin, nails, etc.) In other words, don’t worry about milk soaps or lotions reaching your digestive system if you are lactose intolerant! So this one benefit is useless in terms of topical products, unless one is allergic to cows in particular.
What are the nutritional stats of goat milk vs. cow milk?
When doing research, one must take into consideration that source is everything. For instance, the USDA says that most goat’s milk on average has very slightly (1%) more fat than cow’s milk. But this is not the case from our own experience in farming and using farm-fresh raw milks. Our source of grass-fed cow’s milk has a LOT more fat/cream than other local pasture-raised goat’s milk. How do we know? We can taste and see the difference, which is negligible anyway.
Considering all of this, we can take what the USDA and other nutrient science says with a grain of salt. This is because we don’t know what their sources were for comparison. However, we can compare our own sources and know.
According to the USDA, goat milk and cow milk are almost identical in macronutrients. The USDA states that goat milk has more protein and cholesterol by a mere 1 gram per cup. This is also a questionable difference and dependent upon their sources of milks.
And as far as vitamins and minerals go, both milks have a lot to offer, just in different amounts. Goat milk has more calcium, potassium and vitamin A than cow milk. But, cow milk has more vitamin B12, selenium and folic acid than goat milk.
Therefore, the nutritional benefits of cow’s milk vs. goat’s milk are negligible and nearly identical. Both can be made into their own buttermilk, which would in turn have very minor nutritional differences. We do now offer goat’s milk soaps for those who wish to feel the difference!
Availability
Farm-fresh, raw, grass-fed goat’s milk is also difficult for us to find in our specific locality in consistently sufficient amounts. On average, the largest milking goat breed produces 1/4 to 1/2 gallon of milk per day, while full-size dairy cows produce 3-5 gallons per day. For instance, we typically use 1.5 gallons of milk to produce 288 oz of lotion, or 192 soap bars. This translates to a significantly different cost if the goat milk is twice the cost of cow’s milk per ounce.
Dairy cows usually have more than enough milk to spare. It is more difficult to get goat’s milk than cow’s milk in consistence and abundance.
Environmental Reasons
Is grass-fed cow’s buttermilk eco-friendly? Cows are much more efficient at producing consistent quantity and quality milk than any other animal. Cows are more gentle on the environment since they are strict ruminants (grazing animals). Cows can’t over-graze ecosystems as easily as goats or sheep can due to their unique mouth structure. If properly rotated, grass-fed cows’ grazing actually improves soil, air, and water quality over time (source).
Cow’s milk is also the most wasted milk produced, but buttermilk body products are the perfect solution to the over-abundance!
We choose to use local, raw, pasture-raised, and grass-fed milk our bath and body products. This makes our sourcing the most environmental of any milk products! This insures the least amount of travel, containment, and processing waste possible.
Lactose Intolerance, Acne, and Other Concerns
For those concerned about lactose intolerance: Milk used in soap or other topical products has no direct relation to lactose-intolerance. This is because the dairy product is topically applied to the skin and not ingested into the stomach. Lactose-intolerance has to do solely with how the digestive system handles lactose poorly. The digestive system is separate from the integumentary system – which is hair, skin, nails, etc.
However, if a topical milk allergy has been diagnosed by licensed health practitioners, please do not use any milk products. We have had many success stories even with those who are diagnosed as lactose-intolerant. This risk is up to your and your healthcare provider to decide.
What about dairy and acne? Dermatologists and doctors reveal that a dairy-acne connection stems from digestion of the milk triggering a hormonal acne outbreak. That cascade is not triggered by applying milk products to the skin.
Very informative. Thank you for all the helpful information provided on your website along with the source links!