Changing a saved Bath & Body recipe
Almost every change to a Bath & Body recipe makes a new recipe rather than editing the one you're on — here's the one exception, and why the split is drawn where it is.
A saved recipe isn't fixed — most cards on the page carry their own change control. But the split is not where you'd guess, so it's worth getting straight before you press anything.
Almost every change makes a new recipe. The one you're looking at stays exactly as it is.
What you can edit in place
Three things, and one control:
- The name, the notes, and the status pill — edited directly on the page.
- Change this recipe's batch size — rewrites this recipe's amounts for a new size.
That's the whole list. Everything below the name is chemistry, and chemistry doesn't get edited in place.
Two buttons on one card do opposite things. Resize as a copy and Change this recipe's batch size sit side by side. The first leaves the original alone. The second rewrites this recipe, and that one you cannot take back. Read the label, not the position.
What makes a new recipe
Every one of these creates a variant and takes you to it, leaving the original untouched:
| Control | What it changes |
|---|---|
| Resize as a copy | The batch size, as a separate recipe. |
| Swap mold | A different mold, with the batch resized to it. |
| Remix formula | The oil blend and superfat (from-scratch), or the water / oil / cool-down split and emulsifier rate (lotion). |
| Remix look | Colorants and bath ingredients — appearance without touching the formula. |
| Swap ingredient | A different pantry row in place of one on the recipe. |
| Swap preservative | A different preservative — the minimum dose and target pH window move with it. |
| Remix ✦ | Reopens the wizard with this recipe's picks seeded. |
Why it works that way
A recipe is the record of a formula you made something from. If swapping an oil silently rewrote it, the recipe would no longer describe the batch already curing on your rack — and on a from-scratch bar it would also mean a lye weight quietly changing under a recipe you'd already acknowledged.
So the app makes a copy instead, and you keep both. If you don't want the old one, retire it with the status pill.
The lye consequence
Changing the oils has the widest blast radius on a from-scratch recipe: a different oil means a different SAP value, a different lye weight, and a different water weight. Remix formula recomputes all of it in code from the catalog SAP values and your superfat — the same path the wizard uses — and a resize that rescales a lye weight asks for a fresh acknowledgment before it goes through.
Never carry an old batch's lye weight across to a new blend from memory. See Working safely with lye.
Ask Ellie to Check
Ask Ellie to Check reopens the wizard with this recipe loaded and a review brief, so Ellie critiques the actual recipe — its blend, its load, its dose — rather than building a fresh one. Use it when you want a second opinion on something you already trust enough to have saved.
Changing method
There is no "turn this bath bomb into a scrub". The five Bath & Body products have different data behind them — a bath bomb has no batch, a lotion has phases, a from-scratch bar has a lye graph — so a different product is a different recipe. Start it from the wizard's front door or from Enter manually, and keep the original as a reference.
What a change never touches
Batches you've already run are records of what you actually made. Nothing here rewrites their history — a run keeps the amounts it was walked with.