Thread: Melting mitchels wool fat soap.

Has any one else here had problems with melting thiis soap?

I got some of this this morning for my birthday. and i`ve just tried melting it into the shaving boowl, but the stuff won`t melt!

its been in a pan of simmering water for 45 mins now and its soft but its not melting.

BigIan,

You will have some difficulty melting this soap !

I normally grate it, then squidge the gratings into a bowl, or use the gratings directly into my lathering bowl.

You can also use the puck as a shaving stick, which is what I tend to do now.

Have fun !

Best regards

Russ

ahhh cheers Russ.....

I have pressed it down into the bowl quite well now so will take it off the boil and let it cool then off for my first straight shave,

Thanks

Its impossible to melt that kind of soap. I tried everything
Using a cheese grater and pressing it into a bowl worked great.

BigIan,

Best of luck for your shave

It's a big moment that first shave !

Have fun !

Best regards

Russ

This type of soap is a cold process soap and you can not melt CP soap, no matter how hard you try. The closest thing you could do is rebatch it by mixing it with water in a crock pot or double boiler. The soap is liquified, not melted, in this procedure. You can then boil it down slowly to reduce it to whatever consistency you desire and put it in any type of container you wish. But don't do this to a GREAT soap like Mitchell's! Just use the grater and press the shavings in to your bowl. You don't want to ruin tne Wool Fat!

Its been said but just to make sure You should never try to melt milled soap. It aint pretty

My attempt at melting it failed,
I did break the soap up into small pieces and heated them the soap was much softer and so more maliable and easyer to press into the bowl.

Originally Posted by rrp1501

This type of soap is a cold process soap and you can not melt CP soap, no matter how hard you try. The closest thing you could do is rebatch it by mixing it with water in a crock pot or double boiler. The soap is liquified, not melted, in this procedure. You can then boil it down slowly to reduce it to whatever consistency you desire and put it in any type of container you wish. But don't do this to a GREAT soap like Mitchell's! Just use the grater and press the shavings in to your bowl. You don't want to ruin tne Wool Fat!

This is simply not true. If it were, there would be no such thing as milled soap and especially not tripple milled soap.

The proper term for this is rebatching, and the process is as follows:

1) grate the soap up. This is what is ment by milled soap. The finer the better.

2) place in a container. It is common to add 1-2 tablespoons of water to the mix, especially if the soap you are working with is dry.

3) submerge the container in boiling water, or apply some other form of heat evenly around the surface of the container. Boiling water is good because you know the temperature and you are not likely to burn the soap.

4) Once the soap flakes become translucent, stir the mix to even everything out. This is where you can add additional ingredients if you wish.

5) Put the mix into molds. Pour is probably the wrong word since the mix may be quite thick and you may need to transfer it with a spatula.

6) let cool.

A double boiler works very well for this, you can also put everything into a a ziplock bag (actualy two to make sure it is sealed) and put the bag in a pot of boiling water.

The water does not need to be boiling violently, a slow simmer works fine and the temperature of the water bath is the same.

If you use a zip lock bag you can transfer the melted soap into molds by squeezing it to one corner, cutting the corner and extruding the soap into the mold. Wear gloves, it will be hot (boiling water remember).

The melted soap will be ugly, more like a thick gruel (or porridge) than a creamy liquid. This is the way it looks, it's natural.

Have fun.

Do any of these processes work with Edwin Jagger soaps? I'm pretty sure it isn't glycerin based, but I don't know what it actually is.

And well, for that matter, fccexpert, will your method work on any soap?