Molding crumbly, sticky day-old soap scraps?

[Rachael]

Hi all, I made a batch of soap yesterday and I have about 10 oz leftover from trimming it up. It is about probably 30 hours old now and is crumbly and sticky but will stick and hold if I really squish it together. It still is a little crumbly though from drying out a bit.

I managed to roll it into some balls which I thought would look cool as embeds in a new batch of soap. But I'm wondering, when I cut into the new batch of soap, at this texture are the embeds at risk of crumbling apart as I cut it, or no? Has anyone tried rolling embeds at this texture? If it's probably a no-go is there any way to make it more pliable and usable as shaped embeds other than sticking it in the oven and hoping for the best?

 

[Todd Ziegler]

10 ounces seems like a lot of trimming. What was the recipe?

 

[atiz]

You could use the crumbles in a confetti soap maybe?
I have never taken the trouble but have heard people "rebatching" their shavings, either in the oven or in the crockpot. I usually just store them and use bits of it for cleaning sometimes.

 

[Anstarx]

If you use it as large chunks they can be a bit hard to cut, at least harder than the new soap.
10 oz is a lot of trimming, at least enough to make 3 bars by my standard, you can totally just rebatch them by shred them down a bit more and add some water.

 

[cedarstar]

I have made soap balls with shreds and toss them into fresh batches or use to decorate tops of soap. I never have had trouble with cutting the soap or the balls crumbling.

 

[jcandleattic]

IF you can mold it into a shape you can use it as an embed. It wouldn't be much different than soap dough everyone is crazy about these days.

 

[Todd Ziegler]

Never

IF you can mold it into a shape you can use it as an embed. It wouldn't be much different than soap dough everyone is crazy about these days.

Never heard of soap dough. I will have to google it.

 

[jcandleattic]

Never
Never heard of soap dough. I will have to google it.

Bhaki "Bee" Iayta has made a whole industry out of it.

here is her site and ideas. She sells the dough, and books -A lot of poeple use it, do it, but with their own recipes - but this is what I was talking about (also, there was a past challenge for soap dough on here I think? Maybe just an embed challenge that people used soap dough for - something)

https://sorcerysoaps.com/collections/soap-dough

 

[Todd Ziegler]

Bhaki "Bee" Iayta has made a whole industry out of it.

here is her site and ideas. She sells the dough, and books -A lot of poeple use it, do it, but with their own recipes - but this is what I was talking about (also, there was a past challenge for soap dough on here I think? Maybe just an embed challenge that people used soap dough for - something)

https://sorcerysoaps.com/collections/soap-dough

Thank you

 

[IrishLass]

I've never had trimming embeds crumble in my soap when cut. They should be fine

I always end up with enough trimmings leftover from bevelling to make another bar or two or three of soap (depends on the size batch). I used to save up my trimmings for confetti soaps, but I stopped doing that a few years ago because I just could never keep up with my ginormous supply of trimmings! lol

What I do nowadays is this: As soon as I'm done beveling, I lightly spritz the the soft, sticky trimmings with alcohol just to dampen them a little, then I smoosh them up like clay and press them into decorative MilkyWay-type soap molds. They make for great soaps to be used by the kitchen or bathroom sink.

Sometimes I get lazy, though, and wait too long to smoosh them up and they get too hard to work with. On those occasions, I just gather them into a stainless steel pot, spritz them with only enough water just to dampen them, cover, place in my oven and heat them only just until they are soft enough to be squishable, then I press them into the molds. Here is what they look like:

IrishLass

 

[DeeAnna]

Irish Lass makes prettier "smoosh" bars than I do. But I do exactly the same as she does, including lightly spritzing with alcohol (I use vodka) instead of water.

Water works fine too, if you don't have alcohol available. Water will make the soap trimmings a little stickier when pressing the shreds together than alcohol, but the end result is the same.

I use my hands to form a "hamburger bun" shape rather than use a pretty mold. I cure the "smoosh" bar(s) for the same time as cut bars.

 

[bookreader451]

I had tons of leftover soap when I made my first slabs. I can't cut straight for anything and trying to get them to resemble a bar left me with TONS of leftovers. I cut it into chunks and used it as embeds in a new soap. I did it a day or two after trying to cut the initial batch. I had no trouble at all with it in the new soap.

I did, however, cover it so it didn't dry out.