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You can never be too careful making soap.
Never have children in the area.
Soap gets hot and lye can cause severe damage to you.
If using lye: wear protective gloves & goggles!

Clear Glycerine Soap
Made From Soap Shavings

Rebatching Soap:

"AnnaHappy's Recipe"
My friend Debbie and I made this soap at the same time.

INGREDIENTS

For ***3 pounds of SOAP SHAVINGS,
you will need approximately:


***2 cups (16 ounces) ALCOHOL (whichever kind you use...vodka, 99% rubbing, etc.)

***10 oz. SUGAR, moistened in just enough hot water to dissolve it,
but as little water as possible

***10 oz. VEGETABLE GLYCERINE

***1/2 teaspoon NATURAL OIL {i.e. lavendar, etc.}
If you wish to have scented or Aroma Therapy soap.

AnnaHappy's Note

You can never be too careful when making soap!

Please read all the instructions here, since you will have a
better understanding in all the basic principals
of soap making and rebatching.

"Trace" means it hardens when you place a dollop on a counter,
or you can see the trail your spoon leaves in the soap!

I used Ivory soap and used a carrot peeler to shave the bars.
I was finished in no time!

I purchased the alcohol at Sav On! You can get 90 plus proof, there!

While making soap with my friend, Debbie,
it became evident for
us to get our soap shavings melted well:
we had to keep our soap at about 165 to 185 degrees
(others suggest 200 degrees).

***WE BEGIN BY ADDING THE SOAP SHAVINGS AND GLYCERINE
AND 1/2 OF THE ALCOHOL,
TO A COLD CROCK POT.
WHEN THE POT WAS HEATED TO 145 DEGREES,
WE THEN ADDED THE OTHER INGREDIENTS.


WE DID NOT WANT TO CAUSE A FIRE,
BY COOKING THE MIXTURE ON A STOVE,
SINCE ALCOHOL IS FLAMABLE!


We learned you NEVER put alcohol in the mixture rapidly!
The alcohol MUST BE VERY SLOWLY poured
into the mixture in very
small increments! (If the alcohol is poured in rapidly,
it will spatter out and it can harm you!)


We used the microwave to melt our sugar mixture.
{About 1/3 cup water for the above recipe.}
The sugar melted in about seven minutes on HIGH;
please remember all microwaves are different.


We used candy thermometers and constantly checked our temperatures.


It took us a few hours to get our soap shavings melted,
so it would "trace", which is the correct consisitency.

We stirred occasionally (poking it to get ingedients
to mix is better than stirring,
since stirring can induce air into the soap mixture,
which will make the soap cloudy with air in it).


We let the soap sit over night and the next day
we heated and occasionallly stirred
(poked it and moved it gently),
again at 165 to 185 degrees.


After a few hours, we had clear glycerine soap!
We had to allow the soap time to cure: about two to three weeks.


I left my soap to cure in a rectangular cake pan, which was
lightly greased with vegetable glycerine.
Debbie used a Candy box with high
sides (she used no liner, but her soap came right out)!


I made pretty picture indentations in my soap
with my cookie cutters (hearts, snowflakes, angels etc.)
Be careful here, since the impression you
would like in your soap should not be pressed
any more than 1/8 inch into the soap.


We used a knife to "score" the soap (about 1/4 inch indentations)
into rectangles, before it hardened.
After curing the soap for three weeks,
we cut it where the the score lines
were with a sharp knife.
In a few minutes we had our soap, wrapped
in colored Plastic Wrap.
{You can find "shrink wrap" at Craft Stores, if you like.}

Debbie added pure oils to her soap,
1/2 teaspoon each of
frankincense and myrrh,
when she was finished making the soap
and it was ready be molded, but I left mine unscented.


Have fun making soap! Be Careful!

Below are tips on making glycerine soap.
The recipes tips here are from
Kathy Miller's Soap Making Pages.

To go to her site, CLICK HERE

Subject: glycerin soap
From: Rachael
To: Everyone
Forum: Latherings
Date: Thurs, Dec 03, 1998 at 14:31:01 (EST)
You guys don't need a book to make clear soap
and you don't
need a recipe either.
I make the stuff all the time,
and I make it from shavings, uneven corners that got
trimmed, undersized bars,
soap that didn't cure out with a good
smell (new scent trials), etc. They don't need to be
made of anything particular, aged or unaged, new or old, or
soft or hard. You just need clean shaved soap, a covered
double boiler or crock pot, really strong alcohol
(vodka is good), and glycerin to add to it. You melt the
soap down, using half the etol to start, much
like you would do a rebatch using milk. Get it melted
COMPLETELY and thin in consistency by adding the rest of
the alcohol when it has melted.
Add the dissolved 10 oz. of
sugar and 6 - 8 oz. of glycerin (for each 3 pounds) and
blend. Then you just cook it on this really low, low
heat. When you get "strings" or ropey looking ribbons
falling off the spoon you are using,
and a little dropping off
the spoon onto a cold counter hardens up, your done. So
then you pour the stuff into a container and melt it the
next day ... that draws off the left over moisture from
it. It's still got a couple of extra melts in it left
over, for messing around with it. I recently wondered
if I should start making this stuff in eight pound buckets
and selling it to melt-and-pour fiends - the stuff is cheap
to make and expensive to buy. ... etoh is the vodka,
and rubbing alcohol (70%) works fine too
(Ed.note: look for the 99% stuff...Costco has it here),
but doesn't give a clear soap,
just a rubbery gelatinous soap
(glycerin soap) that is cloudy, kind of like frosted glass.
The higher alcohol level and the lower the water
level in the stuff you use, the clearer the product.
The second melt is after you have finished
the stuff the first day.
You just pull the plug, turn the burner off, and
let it sit in the pot, or pan/bowl (or pour it into
something to sit until tomorrow) and remelt the whole thing
the next day. It takes a whole ten minutes to melt...not
too much planning there (like all melt and pour). If it
still seems less than clear to you, firm it up, and melt it
again. It uses up all the water in it, and the water
content is what makes the stuff cloudy looking. A quick
note of advice: it's kind of an learned thing, so don't get
frustrated if it doesn't work out right away (& don't throw
anything out either, just post problems,
they are all fixable). I compare everything to cooking ...
you have to learn to cook. It just takes some practice to
know what you're looking at ...
like your first trace in the soap bowl ...
did you know what it was right away? I didn't - I stirred
that stuff into a solid rock, then decided it looked ready
to pour into a mold!

Here's another great tip from the Latherings Forum!

Someone was asking what to do about foam that had formed
on the top of their clear glycerin soap after pouring.


Subject: Re: glycerin soap/foam?
Posted by: Liz
Date: 25 February 1999
You can skim the soap or use rubbing alcohol out of your
medicine cabinet and put some in a spray bottle. Spray the layer
of foam and if it's fresh it should disappear. Next time,
spray the top of your soap as soon as the bubbles
appear - as the alcohol evaporates it will leave a smooth
clean finish. Did you stir it up a little too much?
With Glycerin especially, don't stir it as much as poke it
around during melting and very carefully add your dyes
and scents - less stirring makes less bubbles is all.
The good thing is that your bubbles rose to the top
instead of
staying in the bars! I hope this helps.

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