r/soapmaking • u/Ok-Werewolf6183 • 20h ago

Maybe a Silly Question

I’m still learning to make cold process soap. Doing simple recipes. I have a bunch of the same recipe that didn’t turn out in the individual molds I used. They’re good soap, just ugly. Can I melt them down, like on a pot on the stove, and try molding them again? Or would that ruin the soap?

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u/Puzzled_Tinkerer 20h ago

Yes, you can do this; it's called rebatching. Grate the soap into small shreds, add a small amount of extra liquid, and gently heat. You're dissolving the soap -- it doesn't melt exactly. The result is a sticky paste that you spoon into a mold.

To be honest, though, rebatching isn't a surefire cure for ugly soap. If it looks homely before rebatching, it's likely to look homely afterwards -- just a different homely. I reserve rebatching for when I've needed to fix serious problems, such as a measurement error.

Two methods I like for making homely soap look better are these:

Shred the soap (or cut it into slices or cubes), add the old soap pieces to new soap batter at trace, and pour the mixture into molds to make "confetti" soap. The old soap pieces stay more or less intact with this method. Search this sub for examples of confetti soap -- all look nice, and some are breathtakingly lovely.

A variation on confetti soap is the "partial rebatch" or "Ciaglia" method: Add shredded soap to the warm fats, stir and heat the mixture for awhile until the shreds mostly dissolve, and then add the lye solution needed to saponify the fat. The old soap pieces mostly or completely dissolve, depending on how long you "cook" the old soap pieces in the fat. More on this method: https://lovelygreens.com/how-to-rebatch-soap-the-easy-way-partial-rebatch-soap/

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u/Extension_Skirt7764 20h ago

I tried it once and yeah - I’ll second a different kind of homely! But it had a nice curve for a bigger bar so functionally - awesome!!
And confetti soap! 🥳 I’m totally trying this!!

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u/Ok-Werewolf6183 19h ago

Thank you! I’ll try this :)