Rebatching soap experiment

I am continuing to make my own soap as I have oils to use up that I bought before they became so very expensive to buy. I was able to buy Coconut Oil in bulk last year so have been making a lot of 100% Coconut Oil Soap  but I still have Rice Bran Oil to use up and a little Olive Oil so I made up a batch a couple of weeks ago but, for some reason, it was a monumental fail. So I decided to rebatch it. 

Chocolate Mint Soap

Well my soapmaking experiments continue despite a few failed batches recently and unfortunately this batch also didn't turn out well at all either. The recipe was based on one in Jan Berry's latest book Simple Natural Soapmaking.

If at first you don't succeed.....

I rebatched my first lot of soap a while back which you may have read about in the post Learning to rebatch soap and was less than impressed with the result but it was just a trial run for the big failed batch I had made which I didn't want to waste. I read that it was better to rebatch within a week to ten days so, as eight days were up, it was time to take the plunge once again. I don't want to bore you with soap stories but it helps if I record what I have done for future reference.

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.