How to produce M & P soap bases ? Can I use those made from cold process ?

by Faith
(Olympia, WA)

I know that we can simply acquire M & P soap bases from any soap suppliers but I would like to find out how to make it by myself ?


Can I use cold process soaps which has been cured as a replacement ?

My understanding is that it should be fine as a cold process soap has already glycerin in it, so after it's cured, it can be treated like any basic glycerin soap bases for M & P purpose. Is this correct ?

The reason I ask here is that, i want to make soaps starting from scratch by following the cold process approach, but I also want to make it to be more creative way like M & P soaps often do - layers, embedded,....etc.. Hence I just assume I can combine the cold process and Melt and Pour process together as long as the cold process soaps are cured (or even not cured yet but merely harden - this means the final M & P soaps have to get through curing period too before ready, correct ??)

Thanks in advance for your answers,
Faith

Answer:

Sorry...I'm having a bit of a hard time following your question but I'll do my best to answer.

Unfortunately you can't make a melt and soap base from scratch yet...at least not that I am aware.

Cold process soap will not melt down to a thin liquid like melt and pour soap bases do. The process of melting down cold process soap is called rebatching and yields a very different product than melt and pour soap.

As for layering and using embeds...you can do that with cold process soap as well.

You can combine both melt and pour and cold process soaps to make wonderfully creative soaps. Make cold process embeds and add them to melt and pour or make melt and pour embeds and add them to cold process. Both ways will work....and yes the cold process soap will have to be cured so you will either have to use cured cold process embeds or cure the final soaps. Be sure to spray the embeds that go into melt and pour soap with alcohol first so that the melt and pour will stick to them.

I hope this helps answer your questions.

Cathy

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starstarstarstarstar 		Further to your comments . . . .
by: Kathleen

Hi there. I found your website by doing a search on embedding HP/CP soap in Melt and Pour. After reading your comments, I have embedded my reject soap in MP. They turned out beautiful. I'm still a bit anxious that the soap inside will be sloppy or off when I test it. If it works then I might try same process with some goats milk soap that I couldnt get out of the mold and looks a bit ragged. Re remelting CP, adding propylene glycol etc. I did this and it did work. However, the resulting soap is a bit soft. Our weather here (Australia), is quite hot at the moment so I am hoping that when the weather cools down it will harden up. Also, I am leaving it unwrapped so that it might evaporate a bit. I am only relatively new to soapmaking (not even a year old) so if there are any experts out there who have any further advice on what I have done and whether it will work or not, I would greatly appreciate it. Great Website. Thank you!
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starstarstarstarstar 		melt & pour CP soap
by: Anonymous

Add propylene glycol to your shredded CP soap and heat it up in a double boiler or in the oven if you want to make your CP soap meltable. Depending on your formula about 20 - 35% propylene glycol will make most CP soaps meltable and re-meltable. Will pour like liquid into the mold.

Takes about 15 minutes to dissolve and will look like oil in the pot. I do this like re-batching with all my scraps. If you live in a colder climate you can add glycerin, but in hot climates it tends to sweat out of the soap like crazy.

If you use sugar solution as well you can make it transparent. Basically just think of making a transparent Melt & Pour base but use CP soap instead of hot processed soap prior to adding the solvents, works fine.
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starstarstarstarstar 		M & P from CP
by: Wishywashy

Hi
i have had wonderful results re-batching my cp soap. I make some specifically to re-batch in this way. I find the trick is to add a lot more water or liquid than is usually called for.I may have a slightly longer cure time than normal M&P but i have controlled every bit of the process, this is how I do it I grate the quite freshly made soap on the finest grater (this is what I would use to grate nutmeg) it may be labour intensive but is worth the effort. Then I put it in a pot on a low heat (my hob goes to 9 I put it on 3 ). I then add colour fragrance etc. I can use quite intricate moulds using this method & colours that morph in CP dont. I have also seen a youtube video where they made M & P using alchohol & glycerin to HP I am goint to give it a whirl.
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starstarstarstarstar 		melt and pour
by: marina

wont the melt and pour embeds sweat in the cold compress soap if its not covered ?

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