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What Is Hand Milled Soap?                         

Hand Milled soapmaking is the fancy way of saying that you take scraps of  pre-made soap and melt it down in a liquid. The less fancy way to describe it is "rebatching".

Who rebatches soap?

• A cold process soapmaker who has some scraps left over.  Rather than throw the scraps out, she may choose to rebatch them into a new bar of soap.
• A soapmaker who is working with the book The Complete Soapmaker by Norma Cooney or Beautiful Handmade Soaps by Browning.
• A soapmaker who wants to make a completely and truly natural bar of soap but doesn't want to work with lye.

While the concept is simple, rebatching soap is actually difficult enough that many soapmakers refuse to do it. The main problem is that no soap base is 100% the same batch to batch. Even if made from the same recipe, each batch will have a slightly different moisture content, will be slightly more or less alkaline, etc. So, becoming a successful re-batching soapmaker requires practice! Over time, the diligent soapmaker will develop a keen eye for when to adjust temperatures and moisture content during the rebatching process.

The good news is that a rebatch will never fail completely (unlike Cold Process soap, which can fail).  Handmilled soap will always be usable soap.  Done well, the results are wonderfully creamy and airy.  Done poorly, the results are less visually satisfying: lumpy and uneven.   But, as we said, always usable.

Here are the basic instructions:

Take one pound of ground up soap, add one cup of liquid (milk, water, etc.), put  in a crockpot at about 250 degrees Fahrenheit and allow to "stew" for 3-4 hours.  Stir briefly every hour or so. Alternatively, place the ingredients in an enamel pot, cover and put in a 200 degree oven for the same period of time.  Stir every hour or so. Pour into molds.  Allow to age for a few weeks so that the bar will harden (otherwise it dissolves too quickly in water).

If you think you'd like to tackle rebatching as a soapmaking method, we encourage you to purchase one of the above books.  We carry pre-made soap, Castile Soap Curls, in the Bulk Soap section of our Supplies pages.

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