Tiffany Provost asked:


Soap making, is fast catching on, as a hobby. You can throw together a batch of soap that is personalized for your taste and preference. If you make a mistake, you don’t need to toss your soap-making efforts and start from scratch. Use this guide on how to rebatch soap and rescue your homemade soap creations.

Break down the soap. Breaking soap into the smallest pieces possible is the first step in remaking soap. Employ a manual scraper or an electric blender if it is devoid of moisture and too hard. Cut the soap into small pieces if it is fresh and not fully dry.

When to ‘fix’ your soap. It is imperative to know at what stage to fix your soap if there was a problem with how you made it. You will need to remember to add the right ‘fix’ to your soap during the right stage. When you liquefy it the soap, for example, you must add oil or water at this stage and fragrance should be added after the soap is heated.
Return your soap to a liquid form. To repair an error in your homemade soap, start by melting it. To help liquefy your soap bits you can use plain water. Some prefer to use milk (whichever you use does not matter at all - but mild does seem to leave the soap smoother after melting). Put enough liquid in your soap so that it is wet but not too liquid. Make sure each piece of soap is wet enough to help it return to a smooth texture. The smooth texture is what you need when remaking it, and will determine how smooth your final soap product is.

Melting the soap. When you have diluted your soap and let it absorb adequately, (several hours at least), the next stage is to get your crock pot or slow cooker to melt the soap. Once the soap is softened and grated, place it in a crock pot with a secure lid. Make sure the lid is on good and tight and then put your crock pot on low for about an hour. After an hour, stir and mash the mixture using a potato masher. It will probably look like applesauce at this point. Keep heating in the crock pot for another hour. Keep checking back every hour or so until the soap is all the same consistency, mostly see-through, and complete liquid. A completely softened consistency is okay. All together it should take about 4 hours for your soap to reach the point where it can be poured.

Make sure to create your soap as soon as possible. Now that the mixture is able to be poured, you can pour it into a mold. Spoon it out of your crock pot and pour it into a mold. While the soap sets into all parts of the mold, keep tapping the mold; to avoid the formation of air bubbles. Soap that is re- made, should be left in the mold for 24 hours. It should then be easy to pop out of the mold. That is the final thing you’ll need to do in order to rebatch soap. It’s now ready to use.



GAVIN

Jeffrey Dorrian asked:


The first soap mold I ever used was a drawer from an old dresser that was taking up space in my basement. Most soap makers start with some type of rectangular container. It should be at least 3.5 inches high as this will give you a little room for errors. Pvc piping is also popular for making round soap and is available at any hardware store for a nominal cost and you may have in your garage or basement.
Most cardboard boxes will work well as soap molds. Save a few and see which one works best for your volume of soap. You can easily line them with a plastic garbage bag that you have cut along the seams and laid across the box and tucked into the corners. Your soap will slide easily from the mold and you can then peal the bag right off the soap.

If you use a large flat box you can then pour your soap about 1.5 inches thick across the entire surface of the box. When you do it this way, please be sure and give some extra layers of insulation when curing as the large flat surface will dissipate the heat much more quickly than a thicker batch. After 24 hours you can then use cookie cutters to stamp out cute shapes of soap. If the soap is still too moist leave it uncovered for a few hours and it should harden up just enough to allow a nice cut with your cookie cutters.

Triangle bars are great looking bars that are easy to make. Take your block of soap out of the mold after 24 hours and cut lenghth wise into strips approximately 2.5 inches wide. Start at the end of each strip and make a 45 degree cut from the corner. Next, make another cut in the opposite direction, again at 45 degrees. This makes nice wedges of soap that are very attractive and easy to sell.

If you would like to make soap balls pour your block of soap more than 2 inches thick. Then after 24 hours take you soap out the mold and get an ice scream scoop and start making soap balls. Be sure to wear protective gloves to smooth out the edges. If you have two different soaps available you can scoop large chunks of each and use the contrasting colors to make a truly unique soap ball.

For specialty soap, you can use any extra candy molds you might have in your kitchen. Be sure and use only those that you have no intention of making candy with anymore. I sometimes would use old dessert cups that have a very nice round shape and make a very attractive bar of soap. Examine any and all baking utensils and molds that you aren’t using, these make great improvised molds for soap.

If you have any trouble extracting your soap from molds, let the soap stand in the freezer overnight. The soap will pop out of the mold the next morning. Some soap makers put a thin layer of petroleum jelly into molds that have nooks and crannies. Don’t use shortening as it will start to saponify along with your soap mix.



EDDIE