Yeah on the milk!!! I remember those days when I would waltz inside after milking Eloise (my super kicky gal) proudly displaying my measureing cup of 4 oz of milk.
I buy my lye on-line. I've ordered it from 'The Lye Guy' and Essential Depot.com. I actually like The Lye Guy better, but it's about $6 more than the other guy. The Lye Guy's bottles are easier to handle and, to me, seem to keep better.
The only suggestion I'll highly recommend (read that - TELL YOU TO DO) is to keep dryer sheets with the lye bottles and just before pouring it out into the bowl wipe down the lye bowl (I actually just use a chinese soup plastic tupperware bowl thing), the scale and the outside of the lye bottle with a dryer sheet. The static created is amazing and I can't begin to tell you the horror of watching all the lye coming out sideways into my kitchen because I didn't use a dryer sheet.
I've gotten lye on my skin and it's not going to kill you unless you take a bath in the stuff. It does burn and creates a rash, but it's no worse than poison ivy; although the burn/rash doesn't really last as long as poison ivy. White vingar and water help it.
I've also gotten raw soap on me and it's just a little irretating, but that's it. I do use my rubber gloves when I clean up after making a mess like I did yesterday but that's because I don't want the raw soap drying my hands out too much. If I'm just making a small batch I don't bother with gloves at all.