Teach Soap

Crazy question here: I was reading a soaper's blog and this person made cp soaps. To quicken up curing time, after 24hrs., she put her soap while still in the mold in a 150 degree oven for ? hrs....I can't remember how long. Now I was just thinking about this, what if a person was to go ahead and cut her soap and place it in the oven at that temperature for curing? Of course flashpoints on the oils would be taken into consideration to determine if the temperature of the oven could be a tad higher. I'm really interested to hear what everyone thinks of this method. I found it interesting, but I've only made a total of 5 batches of soap, so what in the heck do I know?

I Think for cold process soap you just need to give it the time to cure. I know others who put all thier soap on racks in a closet and put a dehumidifier in there as well. I have mine on a rack in the basement and in the summer time I do run a dehumidifier and have it blowing on my soap from about 6 feet away. I won't change because it always turns out great soap.

Bruce

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www.homebrewsoaps.etsy.com

Theoretically, it might speed it up, but with an essentially itty bitty log of soap instead of a standard log of soap, you gotta figure in warping I'd think. I'm all for speeding up cure times, but other than reducing the water going in? I've had not-so-great luck adding heat to the mix.

I have been using the cold process oven process. As soon as I pour into the mold, I place it in the oven at 170 degrees. That is the lowest my oven temp will get. I leave it in for an hour, then take it out, cover it and let it set over night. I use the least amount of water possible too. Then I take it out, cut it and place it on a drying rack up in my soap closet. I have a fairly hard bar of soap within a week. It does get harder over the next couple of weeks but they are hard and ready to use within 1. You could try that.

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Haven

Thank you for the replies I find it quite interesting how people make their soaps and do things the same, yet have different methods, too.

My oven will go as low as 140*, so I may give this a go. My molds are 14" long by 3 1/2" wide by 3 1/2" deep.

What happens when the soap 'warps'? Does it do like it sounds....that is, misshape it?

I've done batches as CP and them pop them in the oven at 170 degrees, leave them there for about an hour till I get full gel, then turn the oven off. When the soap cools off I cut it.
I still wait at least 2 weeks for the water to evaporate. The soap gets milder as it cures and will last longer.
Technically you could use the gelled soap as soon as it cools off, but it won't last very long.
If you cut your batch into bars, then put those bars in the oven, they will melt. Ditto for a dehydrator. Ask me how I know.

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

Soaping is a big lesson in patience! Doesn't mean you have to like it!

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You may be only one person to the world, but you may also be the world to one person

Im up in Penna. so I don't know if the weather is a factor but I usualy wrap my soap after 6 weeks cure time ,but I think 8 would be even better since after Id say 4 months the cigar band type wrappers get a little loose. So that means it is still loosing water. I've got soap drying all over my cellar right now on racks for the spring craft shows.

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Stephany

mmbbb.webs.com

MMBathBodyBoutique.etsy.com

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

I've put the molds with soap in the oven with only the light on for 6-8 hrs, then turn the light off and let the soap sit in the oven until morning. It's no longer caustic, but I let it sit in the mold until evening before unmolding. The soap is usable, but hardens up nicely after a couple of weeks.

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

In Texas, our humidity is darn near 90% all summer, so I think I'm going to have to invest in a dehumidfier to keep our soaps drying faster. This winter was not too bad, but this warmer weather is making it hard to cure our soap. That cure time is killer when you have a show to get it to! ha Thanks for the great tips!

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http://www.NeeNeesSoapShop.com
http://NeeNeesSoapShop.etsy.com

I live in Texas too. That is why I do the cpop. It just cuts that curing process down by 2 weeks. Now if I could just figure out how to do cpop with a honey soap and not have it volcano on me.

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Haven