Soap bits left over from beveling

[divinegoddessoaps17]

Hi - I'm still fairly new to some soap making techniques, but I have a question about left over trimmings after you bevel the soap. What do you do with the left-overs? Do you embed them in other soaps? All the trimmings have different flavors to them. Do the mix of flavors ruin the soap batch? So far I have been saving them in a large ziploc bag - to be used later - somehow. LOL

 

[toxikon]

Yup, you can use them as confetti to embed in your new batches! Lots of folks do it and hopefully can provide some guidance to you.

 

[NsMar42111]

I used to make confetti soap out of them, just dump in like any other additive. Now my batches are big enough I make soap balls out of the trimmings

 

[earlene]

In my experience, only really strong fragrances that I don't like will live on to offend my new soap. I have had that happen to me once; I soaped a fragrance that I found cloying and gave me headaches and stuck really strong in the soap. After cutting the soap I let it sit for 6 months and the odor remained super strong and still gave me headaches if I was around it too much. So I hoped that in the reheating process of rebatching, it would weaken enough to not offend. Well it did weaken some, but it is still very strong and I still don't like it.

But with fragrances I have liked, none have ruined a new batch of soap. Some fragrances last well and some don't, so if you know which kind your is, then proceed accordingly. What I have done and read that others have also done, is to add either more of the same fragrance or a complementary fragrance to the new soap.

One thing I have learned is to keep my soap shavings in containers in similarity groups. For me it's color, but one could also do it by fragrance similarities as well. Then when I want to make a soap with blue bits, I have the blues altogether. Another thing I've come to realize is that saving all the shavings may be an excessive endeavor not worth the trouble. So sometimes I just decide to toss them and not save all of them.

 

[mx5inpenn]

I take any trimmings and squeeze/roll them into soap balls as soon as I'm done. These cure with the rest of it and then get placed in a dish at the bathroom sink. Sometimes they are good for a single use, sometimes 4 or 5. I like having a bunch of choices too!

 

[cmzaha]

I bevel all my soaps into a 5 gallon bucket and rematch them into scrubby mud bars. Many of my customers love them and I do not end up with a lot of waste.

 

[MySoapyHeart]

I save the bits, squeeze them into a hard pattycake using a melamin cup, and let it cure along with the soaps the bits are from. Then I test it along the way, so I get to test each batch of soap myself before giving it away after curing.

If I have a lot more of it left I use the colored bits as confetti in a new soap.

 

[IrishLass]

I've taken to squishing mine up like clay and pressing them into some of my decorative MilkyWay plastic molds. This is what I end up with- practical and pretty bars:

Of course, the fresher/softer the scraps, the more amenable they are to being squished nicely, but I am able to do the same to much older, drier scraps by lightly spritzing them with water and then warming them in a 200F oven (covered) for just enough time as it takes to soften them up to a squishable consistency to be pressed into my molds.


IrishLass

 

[dixiedragon]

I have a bunch of lard buckets from soaping and I store my scraps in there. I sort them sort of roughly by scent and color. All the minty ones go in one container, fruity/green/floral in another and spicey in another. I do that b/c sometimes I want to make a confetti soap with a certain type of combination, but lots of times I just dump them all in one batch.

 

[divinegoddessoaps17]

Wow - great tips everyone!! Thanks

 

[dixiedragon]

If you make a confetti soap, you want to gel b/c that melts the scraps a bit and they will bond better with the new soap.

http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=52506

Scroll down to entry 10. There's a pic of the same batch of soap - one log gelled, one did not.

 

[DeeAnna]

And if you don't have nice molds like Irish Lass, you can still do what she does. I lightly spritz the fresh trimmings with a small amount of water (or vodka) and knead and smoosh the dampened trimmings into a plump "hamburger bun" shape. I let it cure along with my regular cut bars. The "bun" soap isn't nearly as cute as Irish Lass' molded soap, but it still works great.