Teach Soap

I'm new here, but glad to find a group of people passionate about soap making.

I had searched through the forums trying to find a topic about re-batching soap into more of a cream type soap. I have seen the recipes to make cp cream style soaps using both NAOH and KOH, but since I have a lot of scraps left over or soaps that didn't turn out as nice as I would have liked I wanted to find a way to "recycle" them.

Tonight I cut up into small chunks some of my cp soap, about a lb. I melted, then added a half cup of distilled water, and approx 8oz of oils. I'm trying to get it "wet" enough to not harden into a bar. Next, since I have no ewax on hand, I used beeswax and borax (not something I'd normally do, but hey, this is an experiment) to try and emulsify everything together.

I'm just curious if anyone else has tried anything like this. I whipped it all together and it kind of reminds me of a smooth pudding, a little stiffer then that. Holds it's shape. It's still warm so I have to see what happens, if it starts to separate, harden, etc, but I'm very anxious and want to know anyone elses results or if anyone else has tried this.

Again, I'm glad to be here...

Luigi

I've tried adding water to soap scraps, but didn't whip them. The consistency ended up like snot, so I haven't made it again.

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

I went out and checked on it and its a little harder then I'd like it. I'm remelting and going to add 2 more oz of oil. I'll take a photo of it and try figuring out how to upload it onto here to show you it.

Luigi. I have no experience with rebatching as I've never tried it before but I have a couple of questions.

1) Where are you from?
2) Do you speak any other languages?
3) Are you a guy?

I'm a guy, born in Foggia with my family remaining in northern Apulia near Peschici running the family winery. I speak Foggiano mostly for Italian but know Greek, Portuguese, Russian and some Chinese (and English obviously but not very good conversational structure). Your name indicates you're Italian. Just looking for a comrade in here because sometimes the women gang up on DaveW & me.

You're under no obligation to answer these questions whatsoever and I'm sure I'm going to get bopped on the head by the moderators for even asking these because I'm sure that somewhere down the line it's illegal. I'm just excited at the prospect of having another Italian guy in here.

Ladies, I'm going to lose my little mind if Luigi here is an Italian brother. Just warning you in advance.

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

Yeah, I'm Italian. I was born in Taormina in Sicily, my grandpa is from Genova in the far north and my grandma was from this small village in Sicily called Forza d'Agro. I moved here to the States at a young age. I still speak some Italian, very little Sicilian, but my parents were encouraged to NOT speak Italian anymore when we moved here as I was having an issue catching onto the English language (like calling the moon "loon", mixing luna and moon into one word, yeah, that bad...lol). When the relatives visit or I go home to visit I catch onto the language quickly, but as I rarely use the Italian language here I'm not near fluent. I can speak some French, but again, not fluently, My grandparents live half of the year in France so it comes in handy on a very limited basis. Yes, I'm a guy.

I tried posting a picture of the first attempt but it said the file size was too big! I'm going to have to figure out how to re size them or something because I'd really like to share how it came out.

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

So I started with this...

I had really hoped these would turn out but the fo turned into a horrible scent and the color was wrong. All around I hate em... So chopped em up to recycle them into an experiment.



This was the first try. It looked good but hardened a little stiffer than I had wanted. Back into the pot to reheat.







These are the end results. Didn't whip as smoothly as the first try, but that could be my fault as I didn't heat the rebatch down as much as I probably should have. I wish I could post a video on here to show you it's consistency. It holds together well and feels creamy but some things probably need to be modified. It shakes in the bowl like a jello but doesn't feel like jello at all. Strange...
I have more then enough scraps to keep trying and I'll work on this some more tomorrow. My biggest concern is it separating all out. I'm going to look into emulsifiers and see if there's anything that can hold this mix all together. Hopefully this works and there will be another way to turn our soap scraps into something usable. Maybe nice to throw some sugar in this and give to my friends as a sugar scrub or something. I'll keep you all posted. If anyone has any info on emulsifiers as far as a concoction like this goes that would be great. Prob need to add a little preservative for the water that I added too if this ends up staying together.

Thank you soapbuddy for your help with the photos.

There they are! Now we all can see them. Pretty color! Do you have any ewax? If not, how about some polysorbate to keep it mixed together. Also, since you've added some water, a preservative might not be a bad idea. I would use only the least amount of water in it; otherwise the sugar will just melt.

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

No ewax or anything. I used a borax/beeswax mix I had learned while making some lotions for home use. I need to get some ewax because I have a feeling that this may separate out, though so far so good. I was wondering if soap would actually even need an emulsifier to hold it all together. Dunno. I agree about the preservative, though right now since I'm in the experimenting phase I'm going to hold off on it. This may not work at all so don't want to use any just yet. Playing in the in the soap lab can be so much fun! lol

Welcome Luigi. It's good to see another guy posting here. I noticed from your pictures that you took soap that started out looking like cupcakes and turned them into soaps looking like gellato. Nice.

Soapbuddy - you are going to be busy.

If I didn't know that was soap, I'd eat it. Let us know how it turns out.

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

Well I kinda liked the little cakes to begin with But I hope you get what you are aiming for. Welcome to the craziness Luigi!

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Remember, it's not just that we weather the storm, but how we dance in the rain.

Tammy