Newbie Problem help appreciated soap drying

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A big thing that will affect how long each soap needs to cure is how much liquid you use in the batch. More water/milk/yogurt/puree/etc = longer time needed to cure.

Oh, and if you aren't already, keep notes! Keep lots of notes for every batch, and update them each time you try it. I started with my very first batch.

My first binder is steadily filling up, with the printed out recipe that includes my notes on how much of each thing actually went into the soap, including add ins, colorants and fragrance, how long it took to firm up enough to cut, and how it is to use for each batch of soap I've made (I'm still new enough at this that I'm trying a bar of every batch- soaps lined up for days along the back of my kitchen sink). I also include photos of every batch, so that a year or more down the road I won't find a lone bar of soap kicking around and have no freakin' clue what batch it's from. If (*knock wood it takes a long, long time to ever happen*) any of my soaps develop DOS, that'll go into the notes as well.

I never thought of taking pictures...I can already tell I am going to have to make a run for more notebooks. I am jostlingb1 for everything.
 
I'm using just a three ring binder, with page sleeves. For the photos to go in the binder, I make a thumbnail sheet showing a dozen or so batches, big enough to be easily identifiable AND including the batch name on each photo as well as the date it was made. I place the image sheet after the batches it shows. At the rate I'm going, it's looking like I'm going to fill up about one binder a year.
 
Would lard replace the Shea butter tolerably in this recipe?
I once ran out of shea butter while weighing ingredients. I only needed a few more ounces, so I went to SoapCalc to find a fat that was close to shea butter. I put in 100% shea, clicked "calculate", then the shea numbers showed up in the right column. Then I clicked on each fat that I had on hand in the list of fats and those numbers showed up in the left column -- easy to compare side-by-side with the shea. Lo and behold, lard fatty acids and qualities profile was almost identical to shea butter. Ever since then I've used the two of them interchangeably. So, I say 'go for it'! :thumbup:
 
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