You can make “clean mud” for kids. Make sure the soap is rather dried. Crunch or cut it up into little pieces. unravel a roll of TP (kids love to do this) We made Mummies. Gather the toilet paper together, add the soap (1 cup maybe?) and some watter.. mush it up with you hands and you have some CLEAN mud to play with. You can store it in a Zip locl bag and play with again (add more water if it dries up)

Clean mud? That makes no sense for two reasons:
A) That takes half the fun out of playing with mud.
B) If its diseases you’re worried about having the kids play with soap won’t help their immune systems. Immune systems get stronger through use (although not overuse). Forcing kids into unnatural cleanliness habits is unlikely to be healthy in the long run (Ever wonder why teens develop allergies, could it perhaps be because they spend increased amounts of time inside and begin actually caring about cleanliness?). Granted, with a population of six billion it’s probably for the best to breed long-term unhealthiness.

Acutally, the point for clean mud *technically* is to have inside your house and is something you can do when your not outside/ season permitting (because personally, I’m not going to send my kids out into the snow to collect frozen dirt to make mud.

Being that I’ve done this as a lesson for younger children (Preschool age), I’m aware of how this can be affective for understanding the scientific method (creating a basic hypothesis and experimenting with amounts of ingredients) as well as just something with a unique texture to play with (winds up feeling like a really thick whipped cream).

we used to do something with our old soap, it basically boils down to getting the old bits wet in a large bowl and let them sit until they get that soft film on them, and then you take a mold of some sort (shape is up to you) and you cram it in there as tightly as possible! and let it sit out until it dries - If all went well you should have a funky fresh bar of soap!

Thank You soooo much for this!

If you haven’t got enough to make a bar of solid soap, you can melt them down and add water or something to make liquid soap - especially handy if you’ve alreayd got an old pump soap bottle to reuse too. I’m not sure of an exact recipe but I’ve done it before and it was pretty easy. I’m sure if you search online you’ll find something.

If you have another bar of soap just paste the bits on the bar of soap.

Well, if you’re the gardening type you can just dissolve the soap in water and use a water mister to apply the soapy water to plants and vegtables as an insect deterrant.

Or if you commonly dig holes in the ground without checking for natural gas lines, soapy water does a great job finding leaks in the line, the gas causes it to bubble don’t you know..

For the garden or shop: recycle an old sock (bonus)and place the small bits of soap inside. Knot the top of the sock and hang where you’d like to wash your hands. Just wet the sock and use it to wash up. We use these on outdoor hydrants on our farm and inside barns where we have a water source.

If it’s not a wet slimy bit but still dry solid piece then cut into a small piece of, say, bigger than a dice and keep it inside your bicycle saddle bag where you keep a spare inner tube or puncture repair kit. You can detect the leak on the roadside when use a small amount of water or even your own saliva then rub soap onto suspected area. You see the bubbles when tyre/tube is squeezed. You can use on tyre directly or better on inner tube. Then you can use repair kit to patch up the hole… Bring it with you when you use inflatable beach toys or inflatable boat, too.

I put my little bits of soap into a loofah scrubber that I keep in the shower. It’s constructed like an envelope with a velcro enclosure at one end. It’s made of loofah on one side and fabric on the other. It creates a soapy scrubbing experience. I believe the loofah scrubbers are generally available in beauty or bath departments at a good number of stores.

My dad used to do this all the time when I was a kid - somewhat obsessively in fact, used to wind my mum up a bit!

Just keep the bits until you have quite a few (so maybe 20 or so). When you have enough, soak them for a little while until they’re soft, then cram them into a mould (a small aluminium sweet tin or similar) and let it dry.

That’s it!

I have seen it suggested at a frugal homemakers website about making liquid soap from leftover pieces. I don’t know the exact recipe but it was basically just put the soap pieces in a blender with some water. Then give it a whirl … I bet that you could get the right consistency with some trial-and-error.

I’ve been saving my bits to make my own laundry soap. The recipe I have calls for 16 cups baking soda, 12 cups borax, 8 cups grated castile or glycerin soap flakes, 3 taplespoons essential oil. Use 1/8 cup per load. I thought I’d save my old bits of soap to make my own soap flakes–save up until I had enough to grate 8 cups in my food processer.

Put bits of soap in the plastic mesh bag that onions come in. Use a twist-tie to fasten closed. It’s great if your hands are extra-dirty from gardening, also helps kids hold onto slippery soap.

I wonder if this would work for making a dishsoap scrubber? Same procedure, just use to clean your dishes.

My Granny sewed two small bits of thin foam together to make a kind of sponge envelope to keep old bits of soap in. I loved using it as a kid - very soft and made a great lather.You could probably make one out of those flat washing up sponges.

I never throw out old bits of soap. Soften down the very hard bits in a microwave. Use a very high sided container. Boil all of it down with some water in a pan on the hob. Cool down in an old margarine container.

My gran always kept the end bits of bars of soap in a jam jar until she had enough to make a new bar of soap. Her method was to put a pan of water on the stove, and put the bits of soap in a bowl over the water so it was gently heated. Then it was left to set in the shape of the bottom of the bowl. Normally it would be half the hard Fairy soap for scrubbing floors and half coloured soaps from the bathroom, which made it pretty and mottled.

They’re usually just the right size to wash your mouth out when you’re naughty. Chase it with some Scotch.

Napalm. Use the little bits of soap in Molotov cocktails. The napalm effect is devastating and powerful.

Take the scraps of bar soap and wet them. Then scrape the wood screws on the soap(make sure there is a thick coat). When you drill the screw in the wood, the soap acts as a lubricant and it won’t split the wood. I learned this when I was a young boy. Good luck.

I put scraps of soap into boxes of books or papers that go into storage, or into the pockets of winter coats. They prevent fishmoths from eating paper and cloth and generally keep insects away. Likewise, I rub soap on the inside of cardboard boxes that are going to store things longterm.

throw them in the trash

Shred them, sprinkle with water a bit, squeeze or mold into some shape and you have new bar of soap.