Don’t toss those soap scraps or bad loaves! Rebatch that soap instead and make good money and great “second chance soap”.
It’s easier than making soap from scratch and can produce some amazing bars that people pay top dollar for. We’ll show you how we do it at GoodLife.
Fun Fact: Did you know that donut holes were invented when a donut shop owner decided to cook the hole punchouts in his donuts to eliminate waste? Let’s learn from that.
With a little marketing magic you can earn even more money from a rebatch than from the original loaf. Say this with me, “Benefit from our special Hand Milled soap.” Sounds good, doesn’t it? Now let’s sell it!
What is Rebatch Soap?
Rebatching is the process of “milling” and refining existing soap. It sounds fancier and more complicated than it is – but that good. Fancy sells!
Milling just means to reduce the solid chunks to shavings or small pieces that can easily be melted together to form a new batch. Refining is the act of melting those milled soap particles together to give them new life as a solid usable loaf or bars.
Rebatching by Hand Milling
Hand milling is the most common way to rebatch soap, whether from scraps or an entire batch. Yesterday I rebatched over $100 worth of soap from scraps using a cheese grater and a crockpot. It took less than an hour of my time since the crockpot did the work on autopilot for a couple hours.
That’s why I’m writing this post today. It occurred to me that so many hardworking soapers are throwing money away. Even if you only did two rebatch loafs a year, that will likely cover your website hosting costs – so why not give it a try 🙂
Here’s exactly what I did, step by step – and how you can do the same.
Rebatching Soap – Step by Step
- Save all soap scraps from cutting loaves, damaged bars, batches that didn’t come out looking as planned, etc.
- I had 5 lbs 2 ozs of soap scrap accumulated from the past few weeks. It will sell for $105.
- Weigh out as much of the scrap soap as you need for the size batch you want to do.
- I have a quick cheat sheet to help with this, below.
- Grate the scraps on a cheese grater or cut them into tiny pieces. Some people use an old food processor, but I’ve always done it by hand.
- Place the soap in whatever container you want to rebatch in.
- This might be a crockpot or double boiler for a large batch that you want to run on auto-pilot – or a microwave safe bowl if you’re doing a small quick batch. I have rebatched to make a single bar of experimental soap in a coffee cup and microwave. Just have fun with it!
- Add a wetting agent such as purified or distilled water, a sorbitol mix, sugared water, or even flat beer (with alcohol removed).
- You only need enough to wet the soap shavings or pieces.
Quick Tip
I find that 1.5 ounces of fluid, per pound of soap is a good starting point for soaps that have not cured for too long or for those made with softer oils (oils liquid at room temperature). For hard olis, such as coconut, it is closer to two ounces of fluid added, per pound of soap. If you want a smoother pouring soap, increase the ewater until you get the pouring consistency you want.
- Don’t get all “mathy” on me! A super-fast way to figure out how much fluid is needed is to divide the number of ounces of soap scraps by 10. ie/ 44 ounces or soap needs about 4.4 ounces of fluid to wet it. That’s a pretty simple starting point. You can always add more as needed.
- Now you just cook the shredded soap scraps until they are melted enough to stir into a gel-like consistency. It should look a lot the the “Vaseline” stage of hot process soap if you’re familiar with that. If not, it is just like it sounds. The consistency will be like petroleum jelly. If you want to thin it down, you can add more liquid – just stir it in slowly until it’s the consistency you want for pouring into your mold of choice.
- Now pour it in the mold and let it set up for several hours (up to a day) before cutting. That’s it!
Here is a video that I think demonstrates the microwave method nicely. I’m terrible in front of the camera so this one was created by the folks at www.ultimatehpsoap.com and they did an outstanding job.
Rebatch Soap Cheat Sheet
Here’s that chart I promised you. Keep in mind, this is just a guideline of what works well for me. The one immediately below is a spreadsheet format that you can copy and paste into your own recipe files. The image at the bottom of the page can be downloaded by right-clicking on the image and choosing “save image as”.
| Ounces of Soap (for common loaf mold sizes) > | 22 | 32 | 40 | 42 | 44 | 64 | 100 |
| Main Ingredient = Olive Oil (liquid at room temp) | 1.9 | 2.7 | 3.4 | 3.6 | 3.7 | 5.4 | 8.5 |
| Main Ingredient = Palm Oil (soft-solid at room temp) | 2.1 | 3.0 | 3.8 | 3.9 | 4.1 | 6.0 | 9.4 |
| Main Ingredient = Coconut Oil (solid at room temp) | 2.5 | 3.6 | 4.5 | 4.7 | 5.0 | 7.2 | 11.3 |
| Main Ingredient = Lard (soft-solid at room temp) | 2.3 | 3.4 | 4.2 | 4.4 | 4.6 | 6.7 | 10.5 |
| Main Ingredient = Tallow (solid at room temp) | 2.7 | 4.0 | 5.0 | 5.2 | 5.5 | 7.9 | 12.4 |
| Ozs of Liquid to Add for “Vaseline” consistency | O | U | N | C | E | S | ^ |
This is basically the minimum amount of liquid solution I add based on the amount of soap being rebatched – as measured in US ounces. The large red numbers at the top of the graph are common loaf and mold sizes as measured in US ounces. If you have a different size, just use the appropriate percentage of the 100-ounce mold on the far right.
The numbers below each large red number of soap ounces is the amount of liquid to add, in ounces. This is to give the batch a Vaseline like consistency for spooning into a mold. Increase the amount of fluid to get a smoother pour.
Oil “Hardness” makes a difference in liquid needs
You will notice that each of these numbers varies depending on the type of oil used as the main soap base ingredient. Harder oils and fats (those more solid at room temperature) often need a bit more liquid to help them soften enough to be pliable. Much of this is due to the amount of liquid that evaporates and disappears during the rebatch process.
If you are using a covered slow cooker – for example – and the steam gets recycled back into the container while “cooking,” you may not need as much liquid. Experiment and see what works best for you.
How to read the rebatch soap chart
Using the example below, you can see that if I want to rebatch 44 ounces of soap, whose main ingredient (first listed on the soap label) is coconut oil – You should plan to add 5 ozs of liquid in order to properly wet the soap.
Again – These are just guidelines and your results may vary. This is based on my personal experience.
Why else should I rebatch soap scraps?
One of the most common reasons for “bad batches” in soap making, is that an ingredient was left out of the process. More often that not, it is a final step add-in such as a fragrance or essential oil. Rebatching gives you a “do over” and opportunity to make what you originally intended.
Another issue might be that your soap is “lye heavy,” meaning there was not enough oil in the soap to use up all of the lye. In that case, you simply add the needed oil into the rebatch and let it saponify during the “cook” and after.
A third issue is that you did not have enough lye solution to saponify all of your oils. Usually this is done intentionally to “superfat” the soap. But what if your lye calculation was off? We can fix that!
Fixing a Batch Without Enough Lye
You need to go back to your notes and make certain there was not enough lye in the recipe. I say this because, if there was enough lye – and your oils did not saponify – there’s a good chance you have a pocket of crystalized lye that was never dissolved into the lye solution or exposed to the oils.
If this is the case, DO NOT add more lye.
- Carefully shred the soap taking the precautions needed when working with raw lye.
- Place it in the slow cooker at low to medium heat.
- Add the liquid as detailed above plus a bit more to ensure you have enough to dissolve the lye and properly disperse it.
- It is better to have extra liquid and let the bar take a longer time to cure.
If you checked your recipe and realize you did not add enough lye, do this…
- Doublecheck your numbers by using a lye calculator. Make sure you are adding the correct amount or lye and liquid.
- Carefully shred the soap taking the precautions needed when working with raw lye.
- Place it in the slow cooker at low to medium heat.
- Measure your liquid and put it aside.
- Measure the lye and slowly add it to the liquid once measured. You are just making a small batch of lye solution.
- Add the new lye solution and mix it in thoroughly.
- Now you will complete the rebatch process as if making hot process soap.
- Expect the unsaponified oils to react with the lye solution and mushroom, just like with regular hot process soap making.
- Stir it down and keep watch. It will likely take 20 to 30 more minutes to finish the process once the lye solution has reacted with the oils.
- You may only see a minimal reaction depending on how much lye was added and saponification action required.
Save batches. Save Money. Make beautiful soap AND a nice profit.
>>> Get The Inside Edge
If you think making soap is fun, try some of the ways to market your creations with this post on our site: 5 Genius Ways to Make Your Handmade Soap Standout. These tips really did come from marketing geniuses. Tip #1 is insanely fun AND impressive.