When Good Recipes Go Bad- Simple Rebatching Method

So, you’re hours creating the perfect soap recipe, measuring everything carefully, and starting the stick blender ended in a gloppy mess? Did your Fragrance oil or EO send the batch into clumpy mess?

Been there, done that. For me, it’s been anything from fragrance oil to champagne to titanium dioxide. Everything looks great, then the batch seizes right before your eyes and panic sets in.

It’s enough to make you cry as you scramble to figure some last minute way to make the glob look like something pretty. Something you could gift or sell.

And then you realize it is just the ugliest stuff you have ever seen, and get ready to dump the clump in the garbage, thinking about all the time and money you just wasted. (Bad words may have been said, in my case. Not a proud moment.)

WAIT! Step away from the trashcan!

It can be salvaged. AND MADE pretty again. Rustic, but pretty. No it won’t ever look like the gorgeous creation you started to make. But rebatched soap can be very pretty and very giftable.

Rebatching IS EASY! I found my favorite method (mostly because it takes very little of my personal time and works) while reading comments to a post at Brambleberry.com:

  • Shred or mince your soap
  • Leave it on the counter top overnight in an oven safe pan, covered with 1 cup of liquid (I use goats milk) per pound of soap ( a little less if your soap is kinda liquidy already).
  • In the morning-cover with foil, pop it in the oven at 200 degrees F, and let it sit for 1½ hours. (Don’t peek at it. Let it simmer!)
  • Take it out of the oven, stir in the stuff you want (this is a good time to add fragrance or some herbs. You can add some extra color at this stage, although I have never tried that).
  • Pour the soap into your mold(s) and let it sit out for 24 hours.
  • After 24 hours, put it in the freezer for several hours.
  • Pop them out of the molds and let them dry for several days.
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Yes- what was supposed to be gorgeous champagne soap did look like bacon in the middle.
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All shredded up with some Goat’s milk to sit the night covered
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Out of the oven, stirred, it was still a little too thick
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Added a bit more milk, and stirred, back into the oven for ~20 minutes
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Much smoother, and ready to mold. I didn’t add any fragrances
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It’s the one on the far right. Rustic, basic. Turned out to be a great shave soap.

 

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