In reference to the recipe, when adding boiling water to the shavings of soap, do you add water equal to the weight of the soap used or volume of soap used? IOW, if I use a single 1.75 oz. puck of soap, do I use 1.75 oz. of water?
No problem. Make sure your water is boiling, otherwise the soap is difficult to get smooth. (No added heat, however!)
I didn't measure....probably should have. I just put a little water in stirred with a butter knife and repeated until nice and gooey. Then added the Cologne and stirred that in well. I may have messed it up. I guess I'll see in a few days. The top is hardening nice right now, though.
It would seem that even if someone were to add too much water, the excess water would evaporate or take longer to harden. Sounds like you did it right. Gooooey.
You can't really mess up. The water will evaporate anyway. The only way you could mess up the soap is by over heating. I would press the soap down into my container after 24 hrs, and thereafter every 12 or so. You can tell that it's firming up and it'll compress nicely. Maybe place some parchment paper over the soap and use, if you happen to have an espresso tamper to evenly press down.
I have some pucks of the soap and thought I'd give this a go tomorrow. Thanks to everyone in the thread.
I scored a few old Colgate pucks so I'm definitely going to try this on one of them when I get around to using it.
Thank you for posting the directions on how to do this. The vintage Williams is good stuff and with a nice menthol kick it is even better!
Yes. Although my mug came in the original box it did not have the soap, but I knew that upfront as the seller stated it was a new mug only.
I wonder how this technique would work IF you used glycerin instead of water. By that I mean, grate the soap and put it in your container. Add just enough glycerin to make the soap malleable to shape it into the container and then wait for it to set up. Not sure this would work but thought I'd throw it out there
I checked the mug this morning. It is drying nicely the scent is very nice and I think it is going to stay. It won't compress at all and feels like a sponge or rubber.
Today I used this thread's recipe to make my own batch of the Vintage Williams soap in my own container. I did not use menthol crystals in my concoction. I used 2 pucks of soap because if an apocalypse occurs, I might not be able to boil water. The only note I would make about my experience is that I used jsut enough boiling water so that when I mixed the soap, the consistency was that of bread dough...dense and gooey. I'm hoping it cures enough so that I can use it for tomorrow's shave. Thanks again to @GDCarrington @Primotenore @Weeper Warrior for your advice and tips!
Here are couple of pictures of my cured Williams: As you can see, much of the added moisture has evaporated. I should have weighed the glass right after mixing to keep track of the H2O loss. Oh well, next time.
What if you submersed a puck of VW in a mug of water, just enough to cover the top and let the puck absorb the water over time? Would it have the same effect as the boiling water method and how long would it take? Hmmm.
I just finished my project, it doesn't look right? I used a puck and a half. I guess the next couple of days will tell. I threw the extra few crumbs on top for decorations