soap experiment

melted down the wilkinson soap, added some glycerin and EO's of eucalyptus, bergamot, and cedar. decent smell but i think should have added more glycerin.
then i tried to melt down a soap i got at the store. normal hand/face soap. it is called FA cream bar, with yogurt, vanilla, honey ing.
(sodium tallowate, sodium cocate, aqua, talc, glycerin, parfum, cocunut acid, tallow acid, yogurt, mel, sodium lactate, sodium chloride, propylene glycol, PEG-450, sodium laureth solfate, tetrasodium EDTA, tetrasodium etidronate, BHT, limonene)

this didn't go so well, it just started clumping but not melting. tried another hand/face soap, same problem. anybody know the problem?
thanks

Thats what comes with lye soaps in general.
Only glycerine soaps melt down fine. The others need work.
(Constant stirring and exactly meeting the point of temperature where they get smooth)

i used a double boiler, with a condensed milk tin in boiling water. maybe i should try a no lye soap?

It can work but it needs practice.
Just grating with a cheese grater, adding your goodies and kneading it back together is usually best.

Any soap would melt under the right conditions. For some, it takes longer heating times, slightly higher temperatures, and some times, a bit of water is required after you grate it. This is basically the process of milling or rebatching. Many good quality shaving soaps are milled, often 3 times. I think that you may find this video useful:

rebatching soap - Google Videos

One thing to keep in mind is to make sure that your soap has melted before you add your additional ingredients. The other thing to keep in mind is that there is so much your soap can take so avoid adding too much or too many things that could affect performance.

Al raz.

What you are trying to do is make a glycerin soap from a standard hard soap. This is normally done by melting the soap in high purity alcohol, adding glycerin and then letting the mix set. Google making glycerine soap. Soap made from fats will contain a small amount of natural glycerin (its a byproduct of the saponification reaction), but so called glycerin soaps contain added glycerin and are made by the process mentioned above.

3rd try ... better results
adding milk rather than water achieves better results.
don't know where from but some crap got into it, don't even know what it is, also burnt it a bit so it's got little burnt flakes. got it to a thick yogurt consistency, pourable to a degree. next try will be focusing on not burning it, maybe try the double boiler again. or lower heat, longer time.

tried lathering up. no shaving.
a small amount of irritation on the skin. though i had just shaved earlier today, and as i'm not too proficient, wasn't all together a smooth shave.
lathers not too badly, but dries quickly.
will get some alcohol spirit from a friend for next time. try it like that.