Rebatch Sugar Scrubs

[Tigerlily]

Hello,
I have been trying different things to rebatch my ugly CP fails into sugar scrubs. I can make quite nice hard bars but it seems that once they are used only once, the sugar all melts away and there's no scrubby sugar on the surface anymore. If I break the soap in half, there is scrub in the middle but the outside is surronded in just a slick soap.

I have made sure to carefully dry the bars out between uses but the result is the same. Am I not adding enough sugar? I added 2x the soap scrap amount.

Any ideas?

 

[DeeAnna]

Uh, well, sugar melts in water, and you can't stop it from doing that, no matter how much sugar you use. If you want a soap bar with sugar and you want to use this bar repeatedly, I can't see how you can keep the sugar on the outside of the bar from melting. Even if you dry the bar, there is still some residual water that's soaked into the surface layer of the soap. Your expectations are unrealistic, IMO.

Most sugar scrubs are packaged in single-use portions. Or you scoop a portion out of a larger container and use just that portion on your skin. Then the sugar that melts ends up going down the drain, not staying in the product you're going to use next time.

 

[cmzaha]

As DeeAnna states it is impossible to keep the sugar on the outside. Also if using NaOH soap scraps to create your sugar scrubs it is almost impossible to keep them at a squishy scrubby texture. Even adding in extra glycerin and oils to keep them soft they will eventually harden. I played around with doing the same thing several years ago. What you can do is pour them in little multiple brownie molds then roll them in a lot of sugar, but after first use the customer ends up with a smooth sugar soapie, with the short (due to it being a wash-off), benefit of a sugar solution when you use the sugar soap. I sold a lot of them with the customer realizing they would only last one shower then have a little soap. Many would buy them to test the soap.

I also played around with making a KOH/NaOH soap paste at different percentages and they would still tend to harden over time. I do not remember the last percentage I tried that worked for a while, but by then sugar scrub sales diminished to almost 0. There are just too many DIY sites out and where I live many just make their own scrubs.

 

[Rsapienza]

Maybe something like this would work for you. I hope I'm not way off in what you're trying to accomplish.
https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/cp-soap-sugar-scrub-cubes.31760/

 

[cmzaha]

The method Genny posted will work but it leaves a lot of free oil resulting in a very slippery shower. My shower is little rough tiles to cut down on slip buy even in my shower these make the floor slippery.

 

[Tigerlily]

Thank you all so much for the discussion, I came to the same conclusion about the sugar. This is ok, I can use non melting exfoliants. The reason that I tried sugar in the first place was because I came upon a HP sugar bar and thought it looked like a good idea. I guess the author of the recipe either didn't try it themselves or just sold a dud.