How long should soap cure

However there are some issues involved before you can use it as there is the topic of safety and soap curing. This question comes up at each soap making class.

How soon can I use cold process soap? General soaping knowledge is that you can use cold process soap within 48 hours of making it although it takes 4 to 6 weeks to cure. This is correct but the operative word here is CURE. The operative word that I found confuses so many people is between when can I use my soap vs how long does it take for my soap to cure.

These two are very different questions and should not be confused. Yes cold process soap takes longer to use than hot process soap but ultimately its not as long as you really think. You see cold process soap is ready for use within 48 hours after the chemical process of saponification has subsided.

This is largely depending on your ingredients but its not fully cured because curing is the process of the soap shedding excess water. When we refer to usage we are talking about when is your soap ready to be used on your skin without causing irritation to your body. The good news is what you really are looking for is that point where there is no more lye in your soap as it has all converted your oils into actual soap. The proess that occors when you add your lye water to your oils is a chemical one that takes the fats from the oil and converts them into a new substance called soap.

If you have more lye in your soap than oil you will have a lye heavy soap. And no amount of cure time will save that soap from causing some irritation to your skin. The fatty acids combine with the OH hydroxide to create sodium salts also known as soap but the process is not complete at this stage. The sodium salts need to further align themselves into complex structures called soap crystals. Whilst your soap batter is still liquid, short chain fatty acids begin to form into salt crystals together with some of the longer chain fatty acids.

Saponification is complete within around 48 hours, ie all the hydroxide has been turned in to sodium salts but during the continuing cure time the longer chain fatty acids are still busy queuing to rearrange themselves into soap crystals and this is what helps your soap to become harder as time goes on not just the water evaporation which mostly occurs within the first 2 weeks. If you use your soap before it has fully cured it will dissolve more quickly not just because it has a higher water content but because not all of the longer chain fatty acids have formed soap crystals at that point and it is the crystalline component of soap that is predominantly made up of longer chain soaps which gives hardness and durability.

So what about hot process soap? Well you are in effect forcing your soap through saponification and soap crystals are forming much more quickly - in effect you are speeding up the movement of the queue for the fatty acids to rearrange themselves in to soap crystals.

They can also have impaired lather. The cure time will reduce the amount of water in your soap over a period of weeks. By the end of that time, your bars can lose over half of the water they originally contained. One way to know that your soap has hit the minimum amount of cure time is to weigh the bars each week and to keep a record.

Both cold-process and hot-process soap need to be cured to allow this excess water to evaporate out. Though some water will evaporate out during the cook, it will usually contain more water on the pour than cold-process recipes. Lastly, the longer soap cures, the milder the soap and the better the lather will become.

There is no way to speed up this process as an artisan soapmaker. I go through explaining this process a lot in my cold-process soap making lessons. I hope it can help you too! This means that by the time you take it out, the vast majority of the lye has bonded with the oils. This will increase the surface area for drying and cutting fully cured loaves can be more difficult. The size you cut them is up to your personal preference. There are many places that you can cure your soap but the premise is all the same.

It needs an airy place out of direct sunlight. You can use a bookshelf, metal racks, cardboard boxes, stacked milk crates, or even make towers of soap. Stacking soap during curing is perfectly fine and if you live in a warm and arid place, you could even cure your soap outside. Even though your bars are firm at this time, they still contain moisture that can react with surfaces.

Then space your bars out so that there is plenty of airflow around them. Mark the date you set them on the shelf and also which soap it is. It could be a batch number or simply the recipe name. If you have different batches, feel free to place them side by side but keep them from touching. Also, the cure time begins not from the day you made the soap, but from the time you set it on the shelf.

The time you leave your soap to cure is dependent on the oils and water content of your recipe. Four weeks is a good enough time for the majority of cold-process soap recipes. In hot process soap making , some of the water in the recipe will evaporate off in the cooking process but not enough to reduce the curing time. First of all, it could still contain lye. Curing lets the water content of the soap evaporate out leaving you with harder bars. Soft uncured soap can disintegrate quickly if you get it wet and also have impaired lather.

Young soap bars that are a week or two old can technically be used — both cold-process and hot-process. The older your soap is, the better it will be. If you decide to package up uncured soap it could spell disaster too. The moisture can destroy your labels, create condensation under plastic, and otherwise ruin your product. There are a few ways that you can shorten aspects of the cure time of soap. Since the process happens as the bars dry out, speeding up the evaporation of water in soap may help.

The first is to use the water discounting method, which means to use lye solutions with less water. Making your lye solution stronger, means less water, and a shorter curing time.

Still, it is best to cure your bars for at least four weeks. For most of my recipes, I find that a To get that amount, simply multiply the amount of lye in any soap recipe by 1. Creating stronger lye concentrations speeds up how quickly your soap comes to trace and hardens.

It can also affect how evenly your soap gels and cause other issues including cracking. Another way to cure handmade soap faster is to use a dehumidifier. I keep one going in my workroom when soaps are curing. Make sure to keep them out of the sun and that they have really good airflow.

An electric fan blowing on soap could also reduce your cure time. Again make sure to weigh your soap at the beginning of the cure time and keep an eye on the weight regularly. You can also wrap them in paper packaging. Wrapping them in plastic is a bad idea though for two reasons. First of all, single-use plastic is frowned on these days. That means that excess moisture could cause your bars to get Dreaded Orange Spot, literally orange spots on the bars.

The spots can get icky and have an unpleasant odor and are an indication that the soap has gone rancid. The best place to store handmade soap is in the open air. Please be aware that if you store handmade soap in sealed containers, such as tupperware, then it can greatly reduce the shelf-life of your soap. You could one day open that container of soap to find beads of moisture over the bars and signs that the soap has gone rancid.

This can be easily calculated by looking at all the labels of all the ingredients you used to make soap. Very often you can use it right away. Have you found ways to speed up the soap curing process?

Tell us about it! Debra is a master gardener, a certified herbalist, a natural living instructor, and more. She taught Matt and Betsy how to make soap so they decided to bring her on as a staff writer! Debra recently started an organic herb farm in the mountains of Western North Carolina.

You can even purchase her handmade products on Amazon! If you rely solely upon this advice you do so at your own risk. Here are 15 creative ways to make them useful again. Read on to learn how to have shiny hair and how to make your hair smell good. Follow the 3 simple steps for shiny, great-smelling hair! Autumn means pumpkin spice! From lattes to muffins, pumpkin is everywhere.

So why not make a pumpkin soap? Hi I started out making hot processed soap with a crockpot because the thought of waiting a month or more for it to cure was crazy to me but I actually took the plunge and make some cold processed soap and I like it better.

I can do more with the soap as far as decorating it and it has such a better consistency. You have more possibilities to make your soap prettier then with the hot process method but both methods have their advantages. My last few batches I have had problems with the center of the soap.

When I take it out of the molds and cut the bars the middle is darker or has empty areas.