How I successfully rebatched my Salt Bars: yay! I'm so excited!!!
1. Do NOT use a crock pot like you would for regular rebatching. (You'll water out the salt and end up with a giant crumbly mess.)
2. Use a grater on the finest grate side available. (Some people dry it and grind it to a powder, which would work great too; but I couldn't find my grinder.) The salt bar to be grated can be newer soap, or older soap; just grate it as small as possible. I did a combination of both.
3. Make NEW SOAP, and add the grated salt bar soap to the new batch at light trace. It should be the consistency of watery oatmeal.
a.) Make the new soap from 100% CO, with a high SF (I did 20%) to combat the cleansing and drying effects of the CO soap. If you use another oil/fat, it won't bubble up since CO actually bubbles with salt.
b.) Add no more than half the weight of the salt bar rebatch to the new soap. So, if your new soap is 10oz, add no more than 5oz of grated salt bar rebatch. If you're filling up a mold, allow a little extra space, because you're measuring by weight and not volume. I did 30 oz of new soap with 15oz of grated salt bar rebatch. This filled up my log molds.
c.) Do not add any extra salt or sugar to the batch, unless you know how to manage the ingredients. For example, sugar might overheat your soap and salt will make it harder than it already is. I love working with 100% CO soap, and know that I need to cut it sooner than later.
d.) Cut your soap between 5-7 hours to get a clean cut. If you're pouring into individual cavity molds, then you're in an ideal situation; and you can leave it longer.
e.) If you add additional salt to the new soap, pour into individual cavity molds. You do not want to deal with salt bars in a log mold. No bueno. It gets rock hard and you'll be rebatching your "stones" before you know it.
I made some mistakes with the new bars, which is why the edges are crumbly, but that's my own error for getting a little too creative with salt on the top and bottom. And I cut at 7 hours instead of closer to 5.
I had some overheating from some new FO on the messy bar on the right, so I had to pop it in the freezer for a bit, so they're not perfect; but not a big deal since they're for personal use.
Now, to get through the rest of my "salt bar crumbles" bucket! I have about 2 quarts left to rebatch. LOL
Photo attached of my Valentine's themed rebatched salt bars. It took a few tries, but I'm happy with the result. Since they thickened in trace really fast, it was a bold move to do anything creative with the look and style. They're totally imperfect, but isn't Valentine's day too?!!
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