The Quick And Easy Way To Rebatch Soap

There are many people today who are choosing natural bath and body products because of sensitivities they may have to the chemicals and detergents used in many of these off the shelf products. I discovered the world of natural body care when my daughter developed eczema at nine months - I found that the detergents used in regular soap can be very drying to her skin, as well as mine. This is when I began researching handmade soap and its benefits.

Handmade soap has many benefits for your skin. When making soap, you can choose the oils that you feel will suit your skin's needs. As I read soap recipes online, the process seems quite simple - choose your oils, run it through a soap calculator, weigh your ingredients, mix them, add the lye water, stir, pour into molds. However, as a mother of three little inquisitive minds ages five and under, working with the saponifying agent in soap, namely sodium hydroxide, aka lye, was not an option for me. How, then could I have the benefits of handmade soap without the dangers of lye?

Further research brought me to the practice of rebatching. Rebatching soap was a great option as I could get all the benefits of handmade soap without having to work with or store lye in my home. Rebatching soap is the process of taking fresh handmade soap, melting it down, adding your chosen oils, scent and color, then allowing to harden.

Rebatching soap is not the same as melt and pour soap, which is vegetable glycerin soap. In fact, I like to call rebatching soap, melt, wait, stir, melt, wait,stir, then spread soap. There are a few methods one can use for rebatching, but here I am going to outline the oven rebatching method that I used.

First, obtain some fresh (10 days or less) handmade soap. There are many vendors online that sell soap specifically for rebatching - find the one that works for you. The older the soap, the harder it will be to grate or chop up and the more liquid you will have to add to get it to melt smoothly. Because the soap is so fresh, it is advised that you wear gloves while handling it to avoid any irritation from the saponifying soap.

Preheat your oven to 150-200 degrees. The hotter the oven, the more you have to watch over the soap. I set my oven to the space right before the 200 degrees.

Chop or grate the soap into the smallest pieces possible - the smaller the pieces, the faster the melting process. For each pound of soap, I add about 2-3 tbs of distilled water or milk. (When I made my coffee soap, coffee was my liquid of choice.) Place the pieces into a glass casserole dish with a lid. Pour the liquid over and place into the preheated oven.

Now you wait. Check your soap every 10-15 minutes, depending on the temperature of your oven. Stir the soap pieces with a sturdy wooden or plastic spoon. If you need to, add more liquid, but keep the adding liquid to a minimum. After about 30 minutes, your soap pieces should begin to turn to a substance like applesauce or softened petrolatum jelly. Keep it heating evenly and stir until the mixture is as smooth as possible with no unmelted pieces.

At this time, you can quickly add your fragrance or essential oils as well as your color. Follow your manufacturer's directions and be sure your additives are skin safe! Stir until the additives are incorporated, then spread the mixture into your molds. I prefer to use a plastic log mold or a box (yes, a box) lined with freezer paper. Tap the molds carefully (you don't want to splash hot soap on yourself) so that the soap settles - you don't want any air pockets in your soap. Set your mold or molds aside and let the soap solidify, usually overnight depending on the size of the mold. Once the soap has hardened, pop it out of the mold, let dry for about three days and you have your customized handmade soap!