Making soap with leftover soap flakes is a great way to use up every last drop of purchased product. By adding a few other ingredients you can also have fun with personalized compositions and new fragrances: herbs, almonds, bran and why not vegetables.
Here we talk about making soap but more than a ‘making’ it is a ‘remaking’. The main ingredients are in fact the flakes of soap bars and used soaps that we can no longer use but that we do not like to stick to new soap bars.
Contents hide
1 How to recycle soap leftovers
2 How to make oatmeal bran soap.
3 Making Herbal Soap
4 Making vegetable soap
5 Making milk and honey soap or cocoa butter soap
6 How to Make Disinfectant Soap
How to recycle soap leftovers
Soap leftovers can be used as a detergent soap for hand or machine laundry, partially replacing Marseille soap, or you can put them aside until you have enough to make soap at home. There is nothing to add about the first option, just make sure to crush the flakes before using them for laundry. Let’s take care of the second.
We can collect the soap residues already in a pot that we will use only for this, perhaps chopped with the electric grinder. When the quantity is enough to cover the bottom we will add distilled water as needed to cover and boil on low heat until a homogeneous paste is created.
The longer it boils, the more solid the soap paste becomes, so don’t overdo it. The right consistency is that of a jelly that we will pour into molds of our choice, leaving it to cool and solidify. It takes a couple of weeks, making soap at home requires patience.
So far the basic recipe to regenerate soap flakes as they were before. However, you can add new ingredients to customize the soaps according to your tastes and needs. Here are some suggestions.
How to Make Oatmeal Bran Soap .
Bran and oat flour are also used in cosmetics. To regenerate a soap of this type, just add some bran to the mixture described above. The same with oat flakes after grinding them. Distilled water as needed.
Making Herbal Soap
What do we need? Rosemary has a stimulating and degreasing effect, sage is an antiseptic, chamomile is calming and moisturizing, mallow and calendula are very moisturizing, lavender has a rebalancing effect, aloe vera is emollient. The herbs are added to the mixture already dried and chopped, not fresh. To strengthen the effect, you can add essential oils (you can also buy them online, below are some examples).
Making Vegetable Soap
Cucumbers, carrots, lettuce, and more are good choices. Blend the vegetables with a little water and add the puree to the soap mixture. In this case, adding a preservative, such as borax or grapefruit seed extract, is useful.
Making Milk and Honey or Cocoa Butter Soap
Everything as above: the cocoa butter should be added in the measure of a few teaspoons after having melted it in a bain-marie. The milk is added in powder form, the honey (which in turn can be flavored) in teaspoons.
How to make disinfectant soap
When recovering the remains of old soap bars to make a completely new and personalized soap, you can use the essences that you prefer.
Tea tree oil , for example, is perfect for making a disinfectant soap, peppermint essential oil is good for its astringent properties… Tea tree oil is an essential oil that is highly appreciated in pharmacology, cosmetics and even for dental hygiene: just think that this ingredient is used as a disinfectant agent in Listerine mouthwashes.
Be careful not to overdo it because the pure active ingredients are very powerful and can irritate the skin, so a few drops per bar of soap are enough.
