Antique Lilac Soap Remake, Part 1
Remember this beautiful Antique Lilac Soap?
I made it two months ago, and I’ve been waiting to see if it would harden. It was half of a batch that I split – one half was lye heavy and completely unusable, and this half ended up super-superfatted, so it was extra soft. And still is. While I hate to mutilate those beautiful swirls, I’ve decided to cut it up and put it in another batch of lilac soap. Earlier in the week, I pulled out my food processor and attempted to grate it up. I was somewhat successful:
You can see how soft it really is! Sort of reminds me of this:
As I have time this week, I’ve been laying out the soap that wasn’t completely balled up onto trays, hoping more air will make it less sticky so that I can chop it up and it will disperse in the soap.
When I was first thinking about this project, I was hoping I could put the grated soap in the food processor with the blade and really chop it up, but now I know it would be a gooey mess. So today I took a tray of soap that has been airing out since Sunday and chopped it up with a knife.
Still feels a lot like play dough. If I were to count up all the hours I’ve spent on this soap and figured it into the sales price, no one could afford it. *sigh* I’m thinking about using this chopped up soap in a smaller batch to see how it works before I commit to a full-sized one. Could be the smartest thing I’ve done yet!
I’ve also been contemplating what I could possibly coat this soap with to make it less sticky – like a powder of some sort. I think I’m all out of tapioca starch. Any other bright ideas?
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Amy,do you have any arrowroot? I wonder if that would work?
how about colloidal oatmeal to coat? won’t affect texture and is good for skin:D
@Michele – I don’t have arrowroot. Wish I did!
@elaine – Colloidal oatmeal sounds good too! Can you get it at the grocery store?
Oh what a shame:( How about cornflour Amy? I use that in some of my soaps to give a nice silky feel, or if you wanted to be really bold you could use cocoa powder. With the oatmeal Amy, I make my own, you just blend, blend, blend, in a food processor till you get a nice fine powder.
oatmeal or cornstarch
Sometimes it is easier to just throw it out. Bit like some of my experiences making bath bombs when the mix turns to powder due to an fo or liquid and cream soaps. Whipped soaps once the soap has gone past the piping stage, I tried to save it and added cornflour, it was disasterous. I have wasted whole days and weeks mucking around with stuff and eventually it all ended up in the bin. Expensive learning.
I do have plenty of cornstarch (or cornflour). Wasn’t sure if you could use that in soap! I’ll give it a try!
@Sharon – Yes, sometimes I have to learn the hard way too! I’m just so glad to have found Clean the World to send all my scraps to. I’ve already bagged the balled up pieces and about 8 bars that I didn’t grate up.
How about rolling that soap into small balls then adding them to a colored soap to make soap with polka dots? It’s much easier to roll softer soap like that (ask me how I know.) =)
Sometimes we have to pick our battles and figure out which ones we’ve “lost.” I’d say you’ve spent waayy more time that this batch of soap deserves. Call it a learning experience and the time and money you’ve lost on it “tuition” and move on to something else.
@Dawn – This soap is beyond soft – to the point of sticky. I don’t think it would roll.
@Denny – I hear you, but I went ahead and made a small batch today, coating the shreds with cornstarch, and I think it’s going to work out! Will post about it soon.
Oh the original looks so pretty. The shreds looks perfect though and look forward to the finished product
A fan. If that doesn’t work, I’d toss it. Because if you add it to soap that you spend time making, and it mungs up that batch, you’ll kick yourself for all that time and $$ wasted.
I’m done rebatching.
Let time work on your scraps, eager beaver 😉
xo jo
I have been thinking more about this, don’t know if it will help. If the soft soap is soft because it has too much oil in it and not too much water only you will know that. If it is embeded into say a good base there will be way too much fatted soap where each embed is. Therefore a good chance IMO of dos over time where the extra oil is as the oil comes to it’s useby date, which will have been shortened because it has been heated once already. I think the only way to do something with this is to try and work out how much extra oil is in it and then hot process it to get the oils to disperse into other soap which maybe not so oil heavy or superfatted or just add some lye mix to the chopped up soap and hot process it, colour the whole lot and then chop it into blocks and embed them into a good batch if need be.
@Sharon – Ugh, I hadn’t thought of that. You’re right, of course. Well, I have my sample batch made up and it LOOKS really good. I won’t sell it right away and see what it does. Might be for my own personal stash.