We're consistently on the lookout for opportunities to create more sustainable processes. As SOAK Bath Co has grown its required larger batches of soap to be made. This inevitably leads to more scrap pieces of soap being produced and the odd time a bar will come out of the mold with a dent or gouge that doesn't pass quality control. So what do we do with these odd bars and the excess soap pieces?
A couple things!
1) We've created a limited run soap bar called Stained Glass. Stained Glass is made of chopped up soap pieces from our oops soap batches and is folded into a fresh batch of our signature soap recipe. We add activated charcoal to the soap recipe to make the "backdrop" of the soap a greyish, black colour so the soap pieces really stand out, making the soap bar look like a piece of stained glass. The Stained Glass Soap Bar is a very limited run batch of soap as we have to wait until there are enough scrape pieces of soap to make a batch. So keep your eyes peeled and sign up for our email newsletter to make sure you don't miss these limited releases!
2) We've created little soap sample bags to use up those odds and ends of soap. These sample bags can have soap samples from our normal line of soap bars or it may have a few sample bars we've created for custom projects or upcoming soap bars. Some that went right and sometimes bars that didn't go right. We have these bags of assorted soap samples on the website from time to time, so be sure to scoop them up if they're available.
3) We've created even more limited batches of what's referred to as Rebatch Soap. Rebatch Soap uses very small pieces of soap, gets melted down and repurposed into a new, usable soap batch. We usually shred the scrap soap pieces with a cheese grater so they are small enough to be successful at making the Rebatch Soap bars. We have a bit more flexibility in the Rebatch soap making process as it tends to hold scent better and longer than our traditional cold process soap making.
As the business has grown we've been able to flex our creative muscles to find ways to reduce waste and repurpose in our process.