Can I rebatch Soleseife Soap?

[asmita]

I miscalculated the amount of lye while making a batch of soleseife soap so that the soap is extremely mushy even after 2 days in individual cavities.

Can I rebatch soleseife soap by mixing it with some more lye solution (40%) over gentle heat? Or will the presence of salt lead to separation of glycerine? At the moment my soap is at 35% SF while I was supposed to calculate for 20%SF.

 

[cmzaha]

Yes you can, if you know how much lye is missing. I will work best if you shred up the soap, or you can wait until it does harden up and confetti it into a new batch. Over time it will harden and who knows you might like it

 

[asmita]

Great! Thanks

The SF at 35% seems a little excessive. If the soap comes together then it will feel lovely except it may dissolve far more quickly than is nice.

 

[SaltedFig]

If mushy means the batter is still fairly fluid, you could make up a 50% lye solution (enough to make the correct superfat for your soap) and put the mushy soap batter back in your pot to stick blend in the additional lye solution.

 

[asmita]

If mushy means the batter is still fairly fluid, you could make up a 50% lye solution (enough to make the correct superfat for your soap) and put the mushy soap batter back in your pot to stick blend in the additional lye solution.

Thanks - I'll try that. Just in case the lye solution does not mix properly, any idea if hot processing it will cause separation or not?

 

[SaltedFig]

I haven't had soleseife separate when I've HP'd it, but it is ridiculously fast and will set up almost immediately it contacts a cool surface or cool air, so if you can, CP would be a lot easier. How fluid is the batter now?

 

[asmita]

I haven't had soleseife separate when I've HP'd it, but it is ridiculously fast and will set up almost immediately it contacts a cool surface or cool air, so if you can, CP would be a lot easier. How fluid is the batter now?

Like putty dough.

 

[Dawni]

I haven't had soleseife separate when I've HP'd it, but it is ridiculously fast and will set up almost immediately it contacts a cool surface or cool air, so if you can, CP would be a lot easier. How fluid is the batter now?

Yep, ridiculously fast is correct. Learned the hard way haha.

My recent soleseife is the exact opposite of yours, didn't get the time to cut it when I needed to and when I did, it was too hard and I had a lot of broken off pieces. I had even more after I cleaned up the bars I could save.

What I did with those crumbles was powdered them as best as I could. I calculated for a new batch of soap and stick blended the powder in with the oils til smooth, then added my lye and soaped as normal, which in my case, was HP.

I think you can go up to 50% powder but I didn't wanna deal with it setting up in the pot so I used less, maybe 30% only. Also my new soap had less coconut to hopefully compensate and not set up too fast.

The downside is I have no idea what my SF ended up as, no idea what my cleansing or conditioning value might be, but it is a rock hard rebatch. I hope that helps a bit, even though upon hindsight I'm not 100% sure that was the best way to HP rebatch soleseife lol.

 

[SaltedFig]

Like putty dough.

It has sat for long enough that it's starting to set up.

Once the soap has reached the texture of putty dough, I would not attempt to add lye solution to remake it as CP soap (the lye solution will not mix easily into the soap putty), so the options are along the lines of post #2

Like cmzaha said, it will keep hardening. This will be slow. At some point you will be able to shred it for confetti.

 

[asmita]

Yep, ridiculously fast is correct. Learned the hard way haha.

My recent soleseife is the exact opposite of yours, didn't get the time to cut it when I needed to and when I did, it was too hard and I had a lot of broken off pieces. I had even more after I cleaned up the bars I could save.

What I did with those crumbles was powdered them as best as I could. I calculated for a new batch of soap and stick blended the powder in with the oils til smooth, then added my lye and soaped as normal, which in my case, was HP.

I think you can go up to 50% powder but I didn't wanna deal with it setting up in the pot so I used less, maybe 30% only. Also my new soap had less coconut to hopefully compensate and not set up too fast.

The downside is I have no idea what my SF ended up as, no idea what my cleansing or conditioning value might be, but it is a rock hard rebatch. I hope that helps a bit, even though upon hindsight I'm not 100% sure that was the best way to HP rebatch soleseife lol.

Thank you @Dawni . This is another option. Just trying to see what all my options are,

 

[asmita]

It has sat for long enough that it's starting to set up.

Once the soap has reached the texture of putty dough, I would not attempt to add lye solution to remake it as CP soap (the lye solution will not mix easily into the soap putty), so the options are along the lines of post #2

Like cmzaha said, it will keep hardening. This will be slow. At some point you will be able to shred it for confetti.

It is very squishy putty.

 

[SaltedFig]

Hmmmm. Why not take a known quantity and put it in a sealed bag with the extra lye (carefully, with gloves etc.).

You might be able to manipulate the lye solution into the squishy putty soap (it won't harden until you "release" it).

The sealed bag will keep the air off, while you're playing with the squishy putty soap

 

[asmita]

So I tried following things

1. Made a solution of lye and water to reduce SF to an acceptable limit.
2. Squished the soap in an stainless steel bowl and used hand blender to pulverize it
3. Added the lye water and mixed well
4. When I was putting it in individual moulds, found that it had started leaking water
5. Took it in the bowl again, applied heat and mixed again
6. It again started leaking water as soon as I would hand mix it.
7. Applied heat twice, mixed using hand blender, left it for an hour or so in the bowl and then mixed again.
8. By now I was disheartened and tired. Though the water leaking had substantially reduced after the wait period.
9. Decided to mould it and if after a week or so it continued being spongy, I'll trash it.
10. By end of moulding process, it had leaked some water but not as much as before.
11. The mixture is very soft at the moment but then again, it has a lot of extra water. Plus it is humid these days in Delhi due to rain. I am waiting for dry days to see if water evaporates and gives usable soap. I suspect that after a long cure, it will be a pretty good soap.

Meanwhile I was searching online for the reason for water leaking and came across several articles on 'boiling' of soap. @DeeAnna who I look up to for experimenting and recording her experiments has also written about it (https://classicbells.com/soap/saltOutTut.html). Worst to worst, I might try this process at a later date.

Thank you everyone for your inputs. It helps when others try to help.