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A friend and I are new to making soap, we just tried our first batch. the first part making the basic soap went well and it looked just right. We shreded the soap to remill it and when we tried to melt it with the water it just would not turn to liquid. we tried not to stir it too much, we even added more water at one point trying to get it to liquify. does anyone know what we are doing wrong?
Rebatching (or milling) soap that you've made (CP or HP) doesn't work the same way Melt & Pour soap does. It doesn't melt completely or get liquidy. Really the best you get is a kind of goop which you then kinda slam into a mold. There are some tricks to getting a smoother rebatch but I admit that I'm lousy at it.
You want to keep your soap from drying out, so I recommend rebatching in a boil-in-bag either in a pot of water or the microwave - and not in an open pot. If you use a crockpot keep the lid on as much as possible.
With freshly made soap, by the way, you really don't need to add extra liquid (or very little if you feel you must). Milk seems to be the best thing to add, not water, but don't ask me why. We're talking teaspoons here though.
If rebatching older, dried out soap then you will need more liquid.
My suggestion is to skip the "milling" and just make your first batch the way you like it - it's not necessary to go through the extra step.
I agree with swifty. I've tried remilling batches, (usually if forget to add scent or something) It'ts goopy and bumpy and you have to pack it in the moulds really hard. It never comes out as smooth as the milled soaps you buy. I think they have the equipment and means to do it under pressure, especially when it comes to the moulds. I always wondered why my expensive tripple milled soaps from Europe had a seam in them. I think it's because they mould them under pressure in two piece moulds. I have had better luck with the crock pot method though.
thanks! that should help us! on question though- I've heard that if you add scent ,the lye will "kill "it until it cures - any problems with this? and can we remelt the soap we made that was a flop- or is it a lost cause? it's like mushy bread dough right now - and I don't think it's going to get hard anytime soon! thanks for your advice!!!
It will take a long time for your batch to harden, but as the water evaporates, it will get hard. I add my scents at trace and have little problems if I am using quality fragrance or essential oils. There are certain scents that do better in cold pour or in melt and pour. Some of the suppliers list this on their sites.
I've found that lye damages the shiny finish in my crockpot so it's much harder to clean after cooking in it. So now I have two.
Also, high quality, soap-safe fragrances don't wash out. The ones from the craft store are formulated for MP soap and so likely are very weak and not pH stable, but the good stuff is.. Some essential oils are not very stable (citrus) but those aren't all that stable even when adding after the cook or to rebatched.
actually for rebatching there is no free lye (unless you are fixing a botched batch) so it's not really an issue there
plus, the damaged finish is only an issue in cleaning - underneath it's still porceline.
