Saponification Sunday Scraps

We soapers end up with pounds and pounds of scraps. Some of us like to trim the edges of our bars with knives, potato peelers or in a pinch...our teeth, you know, for that "rustic look." Or we have end pieces that aren't big enough to sell as whole bars. Or as is more often in my case, just plain ugly soap.

Fortunately soap is very versatile. I will fill a spray bottle half full with soap scraps then fill it the rest of the way with hot water. I use this concoction for dish soap, to wipe off counters, clean my store, basically whatever needs a good wipe.

I also will take my scraps, add equal amounts of baking soda, washing soda, borax and grind it in my food processor for laundry soap.

Sometimes I will throw all about two pounds worth of scraps into my crock pot, add a half cup of water or a little Castor oil and rebatch it into more bar soap. It's not always that pretty but hubbie is happy taking it to the shower with him.

He's always favored function over form anyway, just check out his bride.

And then there are times when  I'll take some of my prettier scraps, the curly ones from soap trims and just sprinkle them on top of just poured soft and wet soap or even push the bigger soap curls into the soap batter. When I do that I leave part of the curl sticking out of the top.

Sure, if the bar is handled a lot in our little farm store, the soap curls will break off, but no big deal, as enough of the curl is still buried in the soap to give him interest and texture and when I add some water to the soap pieces on the store floor it just makes cleanup that much easier because it is after all...soap.