If you’re a soap maker, you are bound to end up with a few bars or batches that you just don’t like. Here are a few ideas for using up that “ugly” soap. Try making mosaic soap, re-batching, or felting to give old soap a new look!
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Cutting into a fresh loaf of homemade soap is exhilarating! It’s your chance to see how your color blending, swirls, and layers turned out. Sometimes though, the excitement is short-lived, and you end up with bars or an entire batch that you just don’t like.
Never fear! I have a few ideas for what to do with those “ugly” bars of wonderful soap that you worked hard making.
It’s important to note that these ideas are for using soap that is properly balanced (not lye heavy) and otherwise adequate, just unsightly.
1. Gift Ugly Soap
They say, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Just because you think the soap is ugly doesn’t mean someone else won’t love it! If the soap in question doesn’t live up to your standards for selling it, give it as a gift instead.
Ugly soap still cleans well and smells amazing! Looks aren’t that important if you really think about it.
2. Hide Ugly Soap in a Soap-Saver Bag
If you don’t want to have to look at your ugly soap and want to use it yourself, hide it in a soap-saver bag. Soap-saver bags are a great way to prolong the life of your soap bar and reduce waste too.
I use ugly bars in my shower. They go into the soap-saver bag, get used, and hung in the shower on a Command Hook until they are no more. For more reasons to use a soap-saver bag, click here to read my other article.
3. Use Ugly Soap to Make a New Batch of Mosaic Soap
You can cut your ugly bars into tiny pieces and use them to add a little flair to your next batch of soap. The pieces of old soap suspended in the new batch give the appearance of a mosaic tile masterpiece!
The bar of soap on the left in the picture at the top of this post is an example of mosaic soap.
4. Re-batch Ugly Soap
You can grate your ugly bars and re-batch them into a completely new loaf. Add different colors and even a new scent to recycle the soap completely!
Click here for step-by-step directions for re-batching soap using a slow cooker.
5. Use Ugly Soap as Samples
Everyone loves a free sample! You can get rid of ugly soap by cutting it into samples for people to try. When I do events, I put a pretty dish of sample slices out for customers to smell and take.
6. Wet-felt Ugly Soap
You can turn ugly soap into a beautiful, felted creation by simply covering it with natural fiber! I raise Angora goats and use mohair to make felted soap like what you see on the right in the picture at the top of this post, but any kind of wool or alpaca will work too.
Here are my directions for making wet-felted soap. It’s fun and pretty easy! When you are done, you can even add a needle-felted design to the surface to make it even more charming.
How do you use up “ugly” soap? Tell me about it in the comments!
Mother, farmer, author, and teacher by trade… She loves tending to things and watching them grow!