Learning to rebatch soap

Last weekend I made what I thought was going to be a lovely soap and it turned out to be an absolute fail!!! I can't tell you how disappointed I was as it was the first time I had used shea butter and I thought the batch would turn out really well. However, that was not the case and, as it was quite a large batch, I don't want to waste it so had a trial run a couple of days ago at rebatching some older soap that didn't look all that wonderful. I wasn't thrilled with the result but now I have an idea of how soap reacts when it is being melted in the crockpot and how long it takes.

I had watched a number of YouTube videos including How to rebatch soap using the crockpot. I noticed there was a carton of Pauls goats milk on the bench so figured it was an Aussie making the video. Check out the yellow crocs. I noticed that goats milk soap, cinnamon and honey were added during the process which was quite different from the other methods I had read about so thought I would give that a try as I had the 500g grated soap which was required.

So the grated soap was put into the crockpot and turned onto high...

...30 minutes later it was starting to melt...

...and looked like this twenty minutes after that after a lot of stirring...

...until it would melt no more and the cinnamon and honey were added.  I had seen in another video that a lady then used her beater not a stick blender to make the mixture softer but I don't think it made much difference to mine when I tried that as well.

I had been warned on The Home Maker's forum that it would go hard really quickly and to get it into the mould ASAP but I realised too late that the mould was much too large for that amount of soap and I didn't get a chance to find a more suitable mould. In the video I linked to the Pauls goats milk carton was used. Anyway, I pressed it all down and tried to make it look presentable but that wasn't easy so I covered the top with calendula petals most of which would fall off when I cut it of course.

I didn't bother trying to straighten the soap once I cut it as then I would have to rebatch that as well. LOL! I am not thrilled with the result but it was my first time rebatching and next time I will do it differently. I am not sure why the honey was added to this batch although I guess the cinnamon was used to make it darker. Then it had to be put in the fridge overnight which I also wondered about as it was rebatched soap not freshly made. Anyway, I just did what I was told :-)

One tip I read here on Savvy Homemade was to use milk when rebatching vegetable based soap and water when rebatching tallow soap. My soap doesn't look as nice as the green soap in Rebatching Soap on Soap Making Essentials but I hope my next lot does.

I have never had such a failed batch before and now I need to grate all the soap in the photo before tomorrow and I will give it another try in the crockpot.  This soap is crumbly in parts and still soft in the centre. I did some research on soap blogs online including Soapy Mess-Up Quick Guide on The Soap Queen and I wondered if it was lye heavy but did the zap test which is when you place the bar of soap onto the tip of your tongue and if you feel a slight zap feeling which apparently is similar to licking a battery (and not something I have done before) then there is a high chance the soap is lye heavy. I didn't get zapped but now my mouth tastes like soap.

Also I saw a  video of a lady who had made lye heavy soap and she was showing soap makers what it looked like and during the presentation said her fingers were starting to burn as she handled the soap but I haven't had that issue either so hopefully that wasn't the reason mine is crumbly in places. I had to wait four days before I could get it out of the mould so that was a first for me too. I won't be using that soap recipe again in a hurry I can tell you.    

If you are new to making soap don't be put off by my experience as most batches work out and if you keep it simple to start off with you will be fine. I rarely had any problems until I started experimenting with colours and fragrances. This latest batch of failed soap had pink and green clays added by the way and I think I was attempting to do tiger stripes which didn't quite work out obviously :-)

If you have rebatched soap could you let me know in the comment section what method you used as I am sure lots of my soapmaking readers would be interested. I mean there must be some readers out there apart from Farmer Liz who make soap....right?