How to Give New Life to Old Soap

You may, like me, use bars of soap. (My new favorite? My savon de Marseille bar in violet! yum!!).

(my new favorite!)

It's always frustrating to get the the end of the soap bar, you know - when it's too small to be used comfortably in your hands but too big to justify throwing it away. What to do, what to do...

... turn it into a new bar of soap!

It turns out you can put all of your old soaps into a new soap pretty easily. Here is how!

1. Collect all the leftover pieces of soap in one place. When you have enough to make a viable piece of soap, either crumble them (they must be dry) with a mixer (hand-held or otherwise) or chop them into small pieces with a knife. 
2. Put the pieces into a container (glass is ideal) and construct a water bath. You can add just a pinch of water to your soap mixture. 
3. Bring the water to a boil and make sure to stir your soap mixture. When the mixture is smooth (dough-like, will likely be a bit "bumpy"), it is ready to pour (or scoop).

    4. Scoop the mixture into a pre-oiled mold and let the mixture set. (Silicon cupcake molds or similar will work great too!)

    5. When it is dry and hardened, pop it out and voila! New soap. 

This was loosely taken from the wonderful La Saponaria site, run by Italian soapmakers Luigi and Lucia, who make natural soaps from local ingredients. 


Have fun!