Is it Rebatched soap or Hand Milled soap?
We don't "rebatch" soap. Usually rebatched soap is created when a soap maker has an unsatisfactory batch of soap and wants to re-do it. The new soap created will still have vestiges of the colour, scent etc., of the original cold process soap created, plus whatever else is added.
For hand milling, we take an unscented, uncoloured basically virgin block of cured cold process soap created for this purpose either by us or our trusted supplier, shave it up and put it in a crock pot for a couple of hours.
Exactly What Is Hand-Milled Soap
Hand milling involves cutting up or shaving already saponified* soap with a knife or cheese grater so that it is in small pieces.
These cut up pieces of soap are then added to a slow cooker with a small amount of water, milk, juice or pureed fruit or veggie depending on the type of soap being made, along with oils, butters, fragrances or botanical colourants. They are then spooned into molds and allowed to "cure" for a couple of weeks.
Why we love our Hand Milled Soap!
It's actually more work as you are making the soap twice, but we love, love, love the creamy texture and lather that we get from our milled soaps. Plus, adding additives like pureed fruit, vitamins, grains, oils, etc., after saponification means the finished soap retains more of the nutrients than if added when the soap is going through the original lye process of saponification.
Hand milled bars are more "rustic" looking than factory formed bars, but we love this look as well. It fits us. We grow a lot of the herbs used in our soaps ourselves and we only use botanicals to colour them like safflower seed, spinach powder, beetroot juice etc. Never micas or dyes.
The only problem we have with our milled bars is waiting for them to cure and sometimes a customer may have to wait a week or two if we have run out and are making fresh bars.
I hope this little blog explains a bit about our hand milled soaps. Please feel free to message me if you want to know more.
*Saponified: when making soap from scratch with lye the lye diminishes as the soap cures, leaving no lye in the finished bar. This is saponification.