New Soapmaker in Ohio

[LeeAutore]

Excited to dip my toes in here and learn from other people's experience! I have never made soap before, until about 3 months ago. We discovered that my wife has a ton of scent and fragrance issues, as well as a bunch of ingredient issues. Not being able to find much soap that we could have, I decided to try making it.

First soap is a mostly Tallow soap, with some castor oil and lye and a few other things (worked from a recipe but modified, and didn't write it down, oops!). I totally did it wrong, but the soap turned out just fine.

And last weekend, I tried to mill it. Grated absolutely beautifully! And then I went to try to melt it. I believe I used way too much water, and maybe temperature too high? I have shapes, but they are shaggy, and squishy, and feel like they will take 2 months to dry. Haha.

From an article in the forum that brought me to this site, it sounds like I should read great, add a tiny bit of water, and drop it in a slow cooker on low. Would love feedback!

Excited about learning and trying new things!

-Lee

 

[lsg]

Welcome to the forum. The soap in your picture looks great! Here is a link to good recipes and tutorials. soaping101

 

[AliOop]

Your soaps are very pretty!

Can you explain what you hoped to gain by "milling" your soap? Please be aware that milling technically isn't possible for home soap makers; it requires industrial machinery to compress it and extrude it to the point that it is truly "milled."

The process you have described is actually "rebatching." It isn't necessary in the large majority of cases except batches that seized, or maybe didn't turn out as visually pleasing as you'd like. Since rebatching requires you to add more water to the soap, this can cause it to warp during cure, and the resulting soaps take much longer to become hard than they would if you didn't rebatch. As you noted, your soaps are now squishy, right? Besides, high-tallow soaps are plenty hard on their own without "milling" or "rebatching."

For the existing batch, rebatching isn't likely to make it any smoother than it is now. And again, the additional liquid you'd have to add to smooth out the batter will extend the curing time without providing any additional benefits.

For new batches, I recommend that you allow your soaps to cure without rebatching, and then see what you think after about 4 weeks of curing. Also, be sure to run all recipes through a soap calculator, especially if you change the selected oils, or the amount of oils.

HTH, and keep us posted as to how these pretty soaps cure out over time!