Rebatched Some Soap Today

If you don't want to make soap from scratch you can rebatch it, and personalize the soap with your own additives like softeners, fragrance, and exfoliatents.

I ordered a pound of goat's milk soap from a soap maker and Nubian goat farmer. I thought I'd use it "as is", but it smelled goaty. In fact, I could smell nothing else except the goats. I like goats very much, but I don't want to smell like one.

I rebatched my soap by heating it on the stove in a pot with a little milk, beer, and black strap molasses. I plan to use this soap as shampoo bar as well. The beer adds body to hair and the molasses conditions.

As it melted down, I stirred frequently, and added more milk/beer if it was getting too sticky and dry. It will melt more quickly if you chop the soap into small pieces, or better yet, grate it. If you melt chunks, you'll need to squish the soap against the sides of the pot with a fork or use a potato masher as it melts in order to help it along. Once it melted, I added some chocolate, cardamon, pumpkin spice, cake spice, and mint. Then the mixture was poured into my greased mold. I used cupcake pans because that's what was readily available.

I kept adding scent to this mixture, but there was still a hint of goat. We'll see what it smells like when it is cured. It takes large quantities of fragrance to scent soap. I will need to set it aside for up to four weeks for it to harden. Curing the soap allows the moisture to evaporate making for a harder soap.

Clean up was easy, and I didn't waste the left over soap clinging to the sides of the pot. I added water, liquefied it, and put it in a liquid soap dispenser.

This was kind of a pain, especially trying to scent the soap. I had better luck rebatching soap for this cupcake soap.