Hey everybody, it's Charlotte with the Wooden Wick Co.
and today on Makers Moments i'm going to be talking about the differences
between melt and pour soap, cold processed soap,
hot processed soap, and lastly rebatch. There's a lot of
different types of ways to make your finished product of a soap bar,
and there are pros and cons to each and every one of them.
So this video will help you understand which is the best for you
and why you might use one over the other in certain circumstances.
The first i'm going to talk about is melt and pour soap.
So here we have two blocks of melt and pour soap.
Shea Goat Milk melt and pour soap base
and Coco Mango Butter melt and pour base. Both of these bases are melt and pour
bases and they are sold at the Wooden Wick Co.
Some of the pros of melt and poor base is that you do not have to have any
experience - anybody can make melt and pour soap, it's
super easy, perfect for beginners. Your whole family
can join in even kids, it's super safe. You don't have to handle
any lye, which is one of the biggest benefits.
This soap has already gone through what's called saponification,
which means that it's basically already a finished bar of soap,
and what we're going to do is re-melt it, add in
fragrances, micas, botanicals, and anything else that you would like to customize
your bar of soap, and then let it harden again. Another
benefit of melt and pour soap is that once it's fully cooled it's
ready to use, so there's no cure time unlike other
types of soap making, where you have to wait days or weeks to
use your bar of soap. Melt and pour soap is ready to go right
as soon as it's done cooling. So, awesome benefits to melt and pour
soap, that is one of my favorite types of soap making, and again
the ones we have at the Wooden Wick Co. are the Shea Goat Milk melt and pour
base and the Coco Mango Butter melt and pour base.
Some of the cons to melt and pour soap are that it's not fully customizable.
So since this is essentially already a finished bar of soap,
you can't go back in and customize certain types of oils
or other fresh ingredients that you can add with cold process
or hot process for example. So when you're using melt and pour soap,
one of the cons is that you can't customize it, however
these two bases i have to say, are incredible
and they make amazing bars of soap, so they're perfect
as is. Plus you can still customize them by adding your own fragrances, botanicals,
micas, and more When you're using melt and pour soap, you
want to microwave it in 30 second intervals
until it's fully melted and stop melting it in the microwave once it's become
liquefied. You want to avoid overheating your
melt and pour base so that it doesn't get scorched or burnt.
You'll know you've scorched your base if you're seeing a lot of bubbles
on the surface of your liquid, and if it's starting to harden
before it's actually cooled, so be sure to avoid that
while you're making melt and pour soap. The next type of soap making is called
cold process soap. Cold process soap is popular because it
allows you to customize every single ingredient in your formula.
You can also add fresh ingredients like milk or other
perishable items that will stay in your soap and add
unique properties to it. Cold process soap allows you to be
completely creative because again you can customize every single
ingredient along the way. I wouldn't suggest cold process soap
necessarily for beginners because it can be more challenging
to determine the ratio of lye, water, and oils
to get that perfect bar of soap when you're first starting out.
Some of the cons of cold process soap are that you do need to use lye when
making this type of soap. It can be dangerous when handled
improperly so i wouldn't suggest making cold process soap with young children
or without the proper safety equipment. Cold process soap takes
between four to six weeks to cure, so this is not the type of soap for you if
you're not a very patient person. Because it has to go through
saponification, this type of soap does require a long period
of time to fully cure. So keep in mind that's one of the main
differences between making melt and pour soap
and cold process soap is the cure time. So with melt and pour you have no cure
time, and with cold process soap you need to
wait four to six weeks. The next type of soap making is called
hot process soap. Hot process soap can be made in a
crock pot or a slow cooker at home. The heat in this process speeds up the
saponification process, which means it cures in only one to
three days - yay for instant gratification!
Hot process soap also allows you to fully customize all of the ingredients
in your formula, just like cold process soap. Hot
process soap tends to give you a more rustic
look than cold process soap or melt and pour soap.
Also keep in mind, because you have to heat up
your base, using fragrances with lower flash points can tend to be tricky when
using hot process, so look for fragrances with higher flash
points. Lastly, rebatch. Rebatch soap is a great
way to use a batch of cold process or hot process
soap that didn't necessarily turn out exactly how you wanted it to.
You can save that bar of soap by using the rebatch method,
and this method takes about one to two weeks of cure time.
Again when using re-batch you don't have to deal with lye,
so no safety equipment is needed. Rebatch soap will also,
like hot process, give you a more rustic appearance,
and i don't suggest using fresh ingredients like milk
in your rebatch soap as they can spoil after some period of time.
Rebatch soap tends to be thicker, so making unique swirls can be a bit tricky.
Now that you know all about the different types of soap making -
melt and pour, cold process, hot process, and rebatch,
which one are you going to try? Let me know in the comments below.
Thanks so much for watching and be sure to subscribe to our channel
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Happy making!