If you want to save a couple cents, get deep into zero-waste living, or prepare for your post-apocalypse lifestyle, recycling your old soap scraps into new bars is a great place to start. It’s easy, fun, and you can tell yourself your creation is just as good as store-bought soap.
The basic principle of re-barring soap is simple—you melt old scraps of soap, then press them into a new bar—but there’s not one perfect recipe or method. How you do it depends on how much effort you want to put into the project. Below are three soap-cycling methods, presented in giving-a-shit order, from “hardly” to “a ton.”
The soap-glob method is perfect for stereotypical single guys moving into their first apartment and just-divorced dads who have no idea how to live their life at a most basic level. Here’s the step-by-step:
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If you have too much self-esteem to wash with a soap-glob you made in three minutes, this next method is a step-up.
This method will likely result in a lumpy, grey soap. It will get your hands clean, but you’re not making the cover of Soap Monthly or anything. For that, you need the...
I watched many soap-making tutorials on YouTube (it’s a surprisingly popular genre) and synthesized the following basic recipe. Keep in mind: Since the ingredients in soap varies from brand to brand, it’s not an exact science. So see what works best for you.
If all this cooking isn’t for you, this YouTuber presents an alternative soap-making method that doesn’t involve melting the soap. Instead, you put soap scraps and water in a wooden box, and apply pressure with some c-clamps until the new bar holds together. That’s the idea, anyway.
Old bars of soap are clean (I mean, they’re soap) so there’s no rational reason to be skeeved out by soap made from old slivers, but it still seems questionable. Imagine if you went to a hotel and found out your bathroom was stocked with soap made from the reused bars from people’s rooms. Gross, right? Be aware of the disgust others might feel, and do not put homemade soap in the guest bathroom, unless you dislike your guests.
If you have ever made soap from old slivers, leave any tips you have in the comments.