What does "Triple Milled"'mean?

[K.T.]

I see some of the better quality soaps, shaving or otherwise, are labeled as triple milled or even quadruple milled. What does that mean?

The term, milling, is often used in the DIY sense to describe the grating of soap puck so that it will fit into a smaller container. I don't see that the two processes are related, or are they?

Why is triple milling so superior? I'm under the impression that it produces a harder, longer lasting soap, but how?

 

[Leche]

The soap has basically been extruded and pressed together three times removing much of the air and moisture. It produces a dense and very hard puck. It doesn't make the soap superior, but the soap lasts much longer.

 

[Groat]

This is what ehow says on the subject: "Triple milled soaps, or French milled soaps, are made of a typical combination of a fatty acid (oil or fat) in reaction with lye (sodium hydrochloride). After the soap is made, it is dried into crystals, then rolled at least three times between large stainless steel rollers until a paste is formed. The paste is then pressed into soap molds, and triple milled soap is created."

So essentially, triple milled soaps are not glycerin soaps. They can be made from animal or vegetable fats, and require a bit more work than glycerin soaps to create. They do indeed last much longer than glycerin soap, as evidenced by the fact that I've been using a triple milled bath soap for three weeks now while a glycerin soap would have been gone in a week.

 

[The Seeker]

Trumpers soaps are a good example of this. Even with daily use, they'll last several months.

 

[The Last Chimney]

After being put through several months of shaving, my TOBS looked in the mirror one morning and was happily surprised to see that it had lost a little weight around its middle!

 

[SliceOfLife]

You know those rollers that press out aluminum foil using many tons of force?

Grate the soap, run it through those. Repeat. Grate it a third time and run it through again, but this time with soap shaped gaps in the rollers.

Voila, triple milled soap.

I BELIEVE that salt (NaCl) is added and removed during this process to collect the moisture that is pressed out, but I don't know for sure.

 

[K.T.]

Thanks! That really sheds light on the process.

For some reason when I saw the term "milling," I kept thinking about a router or CNC machining process and wasn't sure how this type of action could be used to make a hard soap.

Guess I was barking up the wrong tree.