Hello Greetings from Wales. The sun is currently shining though perhaps not for long. I understand that shaving soap can be melted into a container. I have a few questions. 1. Can any shaving soap be used? Can anyone give a list of soaps that can and soaps that can't be melted. 2. How do you melt the soap eg microwave, hob, how long for etc? 3 Can you mix soaps. For example you have a little bit of one soap left in the pot, can it be melted down and mixed up with the new soap? 4. Can Mitchells Wool Fat, Arko soap, or Proraso soap be melted down as these may be on my shopping list before long? Best wishes Kristian
Melting has always seemed very risky to me, as I udnerstand it you can destroy a soap if you're not careful. If you want to fit a soap into a certain container I think you're better off grating the soap and then pressing it into the new container. Then again I've never tried melting a soap, so perhaps I'm wrong. I'm going to stick with grating though.
A Melt & Pour base soap (as known as glycerin soap) can be melted rather easily. Place it in the microwave in a safe container then nuke it for 12 seconds at a time until melted. Do not boil the soap. Usually two 12 second hits does the trick. Tallow based soaps are more difficult to melt and if you do not know exactly what to do you will ruin the soap. I don't know why you would want to melt MWF soap it is fine the way it is and has a nice bowl. Just use the soap until it is gone and the break out the new one. No need to mix the old and the new. Raf
As far as I know, none of the soaps you mentioned can be easily melted. However, ARKO soap is really soft so you could probably just smash it down into your container of choice. Proraso is one of those soft soaps/hard creams so you could probably scoop it out w/a spoon and push it into your container of choice. The mitchells however would probably need to be grated. I've never grated any hard soaps, but I did buy some hard soaps second hand that had been grated down and pushed into glass anchor hocking bowls. They all work really really well, albeit I'm not big on glass in the bathroom, too afraid I'll drop it and have glass everywhere.
Hi Kristian, I also just use a cheese grater and then press it into the bowl with hard soaps and even some semi soft ones. As Raf mentioned the microwave will work nicely on the glycerin soaps. The Proraso soap can probably be mashed into a bowl a little more easily than the other two. I would probably grate the MWF and the Arko as it doesn't take long and I like the way it molds easily to the bowl afterwards. You could always grate a couple of different soaps together then mix them well to create your own custom blend Enjoy them soaps Neale
The grating and squashing idea sounds better than melting and perhaps less messy also. I will give it a go. Thanks for the replies. Kristian
My wife taught me a little trick. She said this is the way she melts chocolate. Take a "Pyrex" or other brand of heat proof glass, and place it in a pan of water. Place the soap in the glass and start the water to heating. You can control the melting by adding or reducing heat. I can tell you from experience this does not work with tallow soaps, but with glycerin based it is a snap.
As a rule of thumb it's best not to melt triple milled soaps in the microwave. Glycerin based soaps like the old surrey can be melted successfully.
DO NOT TRY TO MELT WILLIAMS!!!! :ashamed001 doesn't work. However, VDH Pink and VDH Amber both work great. Haven't tried the White.. -Mason
What timing! Just earlier this evening I carefully hit a Van Der Hagen Deluxe with a quick 15 second shot into a Old Spice mug I found this week. I popped it into the fridge for a bit and just took it out as I was walking to the PC. It appears to be setting up quite nicely. :happy088 P.S. Johan - I'm keeping this one for myself!
It is the double boiler method, without actually using a double boiler. When melting glycerine based soaps it really is easier to just stick them in the microwave for 10-20 seconds. As long as it doesnt boil you dont make a mess. Tripple milled soaps and tallow soaps are cheese grater status and are a pain, hence why I dont do it.
There is clearly a ton of experience here at the shave den. I am definitely a rookie, but I'm looking forward to all the possiblities!
