# Hand Milling Soap ??



## Piedpipurr (Dec 28, 2008)

I received as a gift a very nice book, Natural Soapmaking, by Marie Browning.

Most of the information in the book is for hand milling.  The way I understand the book is that the soap base is, "soap be white, unscented, and not a detergent. Unscented, hypo-allergenic soaps, such as baby soaps and pure vegetable soaps."

My question...........can I use M&P bases?  If so, any suggestions for which type of base to use?  

Thanks!


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## carebear (Dec 28, 2008)

MP soaps are different.  you don't have to "mill" MP soap - just melt and proceed.


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## Piedpipurr (Dec 28, 2008)

I understand that M&P is different but the handmilled soap has the appearance of more of a home made soap that I like the look of.  So again, can M&P be used in place of store bought soap bars for handmilled?

Thanks!


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## Lindy (Dec 28, 2008)

What you could do is order a soap base rather than the MP so you can mill it and get the look you're wanting.  Brambleberry sells it - here is the page link http://www.brambleberry.com/soapbases.html.

Once you know what to look for you can check out your preferred supplier to find it.  With M&P you are simply not going to get the texture and look that you are wanting.

HTH

Cheers
Lindy


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## ChrissyB (Dec 28, 2008)

Hi
Why don't you make your own soap base for hand milling?
Even if you go to the store and buy "baby" soap, it is still full of detergents and fragrance. And most store soaps contain tallow (beef fat), so they are not vegetable based. Tallow is listed on the ingredients as Sodium Tallowate, that's tallow in it's saponified form.
If I were you, I would make my own, say Bastille, 75% Olive, 25% coconut soap. It will be white, and unscented. And you don't have to wait for it to cure to handmill it. The sooner after it is made that you mill it, the less liquid you have to add. At least then you know exactly what you are working with.
I don't know about MP base, because I have never used it, but the term "hand mill" means grated or shredded and then melted, with fragrance,botanicals, and colour added. MP just has to be chopped up and melted. It's totally different soap.


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## Cattleyabubbles (Dec 28, 2008)

@Piedpipurr: Carebear is only trying to tell you that M&P base soaps you don't have to handmill (I have that same book, btw) you *Melt* the soap base, add whatever organic oils and/or essential oils than *Pour* it into the molds. Handmill soaps are all about taking a commercial soap and further improving upon the ingredients that''s already in the soap and giving the soap the property characteristics that you want it to have; rather that's moisturizing, conditioning, etc. 

You also need to check what are the ingredients that make up M&P soap base, if you want to take a M&P soap that's already cured by someone else than you could use that to make handmill soap but again you need to be conscious of the M&P soap base ingredients and other ingredients added that that person use in their recipe. HTH


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## carebear (Dec 28, 2008)

thanks for clarifying for me - I couldn't figure out how to say it.


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## Lindy (Dec 28, 2008)

Cattleyabubbles - Hi there.  Actually you can handmill handmade soaps.  Hand Milling is the same thing as rebatching - different terms, same method.  I suppose you could hand mill a commercial soap, I just don't know why you would though when you can buy a soap base, (castille, goats milk, etc.) from the same suppliers that carry the M&P.  They all come with instructions on how to use the base including recommended fluid amounts since they will each have done their own water discounts.

I personally handmill my own soaps when I need to make a special batch for someone.

Cheers
Lindy


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## Cattleyabubbles (Dec 28, 2008)

@Carebear: you wecome :wink: 

@Lindy: I did mention that in the latter part of my previous posting re: handmade, handmill; only she's using somebody else's soap if she doesn't want to go through making her own handmade soap to handmill or rebatch. 

@Piedpipurr: Let me clarify myself, you're not entirely restricted to using just commercial soaps to rebatch into a new soap.  Has others have already mention you can make your own handmade soap to rebatch and handmill it into many shape you want or pour into a mold or you can use someone else's cured bar (soap recipe) to make a handmill soap. HTH.


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## Lindy (Dec 29, 2008)

hey Cattleyabubbles - I must have misunderstoof your response - I thought you meant buying "Commercial soap Dove to rebaatch) rather than the soap bases ready made for just that purpose by suppliers of quality of Brambleberry and others.

Please accept my apologies for misunderstand what you were trying to say.

Cheers
Lindy


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## Cattleyabubbles (Dec 29, 2008)

It's no big deal! Not meaning to offend anyone. The OP didn't state rather she would be making her own soap, so my assumption, was she would use a commercial soap or handmade MP soap when she ask her question, I was just trying to help her understand what carebear was trying to explain to her from the get go in so many words.


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## Piedpipurr (Dec 29, 2008)

I want to thank everyone who has responded to my question.  I breed and have many cats in my home so I do not want to make my own soap with lye.  I remembered I know someone who makes cp so I'm going to contact her about making me an unscented/uncolored soap to use for hand milling.

If anyone would like to see my cattery (and know why I would never do anything to harm their health) here is my website:

www.piedpipurr.com


Carole


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