by La Shonda on May 6, 2013
Soapmaking encompasses art, beauty and chemistry. At a recent advance soapmaking class where the students made soaps using a couple of coloring techniques: funnel swirl and good ole fashion swirl. Here are a few photos from that class where the canvas is made out of soap.
The first one reminds me of a galaxy far far away. It is amazing how each person uses the same tools, the same coloring, the same ingredients but yet each one is a unique work of artist expression through the medium of soap.
by La Shonda on April 29, 2013
Recently I had a large soap order which left me with over 30 pounds of soap ends of perfectly good soap. Instead of throwing those pieces of soap away or having them take up space and months to use personally I decided to rebatch the soap.
So how do you exactly rebatch? Well it is not hard to do at all. You will need the following equipment:
The first thing you will need to do is grate the soap into shreds. Once shredded add the soap to the slow cooker. I put the slow cooker on high. For every 2 pounds of soap I added about 3 ounces of water or the liquid of your choice. I didn’t use too much liquid since the soap I was using was still moist and soft. After about 30 minutes I stirred the soap to make sure that all the soap had a chance to evenly melt down. Within an hour all the soap was soap. I also added one good squirt of castor oil. Castor oils is great for boosting lather just in case some of the lathering properties were diminished during the process. Before putting the soap into a mold an ounce of fragrance was added to boost the scent factor of the melted soap. Just in case the fragrance that was originally used burned off in the process.
After the soap was melted I scooped the soft soap out of the crock pot and into the mold. Every so often I would tap the mold so that the soap would evenly distribute and lesson the possibility for air pockets to be trapped.
The soap was allowed to sit in the mold for about 12 hours or enough time for it to cool and harden. I unwrapped the soaps and allowed the surface to air dry before proceeding to cut into slices.
This process allowed me not to waste soap nor have it sitting around taking space on my shelf. It was perfectly good soap to sell.
You can use this technique to get rid of any scraps of soap you may have and cut up chunks of soap to give it texture and personality.
So here’s to no more scraps of soap lying around collecting dust. Now you can rebatch your soap scraps and have a whole new line of super soaps to offer your customers.
to grate your soap into shreds. This aids in the soap getting soft enough to remold.
or any other type of slow cooker
