Hey everyone I have a quick question. I have a puck of T&H soap and was wondering if it would be detrimental to melt it down to fit a bowl I have. I melted a puck of Conks almond glycerin down to fit another bowl and it turned out fine, but I don't know if it would be the same with the T&H being that it is triple milled.
Melting down triple milled soaps?
- Thread starter wakeboarder4402
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Only glycerin soaps can be melted (they are a melt and pour soap). Milled and cold process soaps cannot.
+1 There's a sticky on this by Jim, for anyone who wants the details.
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- #5
Yes I just read it after I posted this, thank you guys for your help!
I'm not a fan of using hard soaps in pressed grated form - I think the shreds allow water to penetrate the soap too deeply and leeches out the aroma oils and other fats. Every time I've done this the resulting soap was noticeably inferior to an ungrated puck after both have had a few months of use.
You can melt triple milled soaps - they were melted at the factory after all.
The key is that at the factory the soaps had a lot more water in them - they were dried and aged before being packaged up and shipped out. The water helps keep the soap from burning while it's melting. To melt them at home you need to grate the soap and add a teaspoon or so of water and mix thoroughly, then either melt it in a double boiler or microwave (very carefully) and with lots of stirring to avoid any hot spots. Then pour it into your container and let it cool and dry.
You can melt triple milled soaps - they were melted at the factory after all.
The key is that at the factory the soaps had a lot more water in them - they were dried and aged before being packaged up and shipped out. The water helps keep the soap from burning while it's melting. To melt them at home you need to grate the soap and add a teaspoon or so of water and mix thoroughly, then either melt it in a double boiler or microwave (very carefully) and with lots of stirring to avoid any hot spots. Then pour it into your container and let it cool and dry.
Have you actually done this with good results? I've always heard that melting triple milled soaps would ruin the soap. It would be interesting to find out that this could actually be done after all.
Interesting though I have never found this to happen. Perhaps your not repacking your soap tight enough?
Possibly. I packed mine using a dowel, but who knows.
I place a little wax paper over mine and just start kneading away with my fingers. This way I can work out any air pockets. I does take a little time but the effort is worth it.
I have melted down t-milled as well but I like the grating method better.
Of coarse I always got yelled at as a kid for playing with my food....
Yes I have done this with several soaps successfully. Among other things, I made an AOS Lime soap by melting the AOS unscented soap and mixing in a bottle of Lime EO while it was melted. I tried doing it with AOS unscented and Rose Otto EO but I can't find good Rose EO, it is always cut with some other very heavy oil like jojoba so that experiment failed because of the EO. And I once did a Williams soap that I spiked with Bergamot and Geranium.
If you just pop a puck in the microwave the way you can a glycerin soap, then it will scorch and burn and be ruined. But there just isn't enough water in the soap to buffer the temperature. Grating it and adding water is a quick and dirty way to get the soap rehydrated back to the factory moisture levels before attempting to melt it.
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- #12
Now will doing this give the soap greater volume when it dries? Also will it perform differently IE: need less/more water when lathering?
I place a little wax paper over mine and just start kneading away with my fingers. This way I can work out any air pockets. I does take a little time but the effort is worth it.
I have melted down t-milled as well but I like the grating method better.
Of coarse I always got yelled at as a kid for playing with my food....
Wax paper - that's a great idea. That's what I'll use next time I make up an MWF shave stick...After it hardens it will be a larger volume because of the added water - similar to the way a solid puck swells as it absorbs water, and it will perform similarly. If you let it dry then it will shrink back down, though not quite all the way because the commercial pucks are formed in hydraulic presses under a few tons of pressure.
Is there a benefit to recasting your soap, other than to fit it into a non-conforming bowl? The purist in me really chafes at the idea, so I am wondering why there is so much interest in the practice.
No judgment -- just curious.
No judgment -- just curious.
I don't believe there is. I buy all my soaps in bowls or refills to fit but once in awhile someone gifts me some soap and it has no bowl so it needs to be fitted into something as I do not like my soaps to fit sloppily in a bowl or mug.
If you want to change the scent of a soap (either to punch it up or to modify it a bit) then melting is the way to do this. AOS makes a lemon soap but not a lime one, and I really prefer the smell of lime, so melt their unscented soap and toss in lime EO to taste and tadah!
I like lime soap and this sounds like an interesting idea. Thanks!
No, you can't melt them but you can rebatch them. It's a slightly different process and after you are done the soap needs to be remolded and recured so it dries properly. I will not explain how to do it here since it's a soapmaking technique that needs a bit of understanding and is more likely to cause changes to the scent and quality of the soap than grating. What you have described is a very basic explanation of rebatching.
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