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Have you worked out a better storage area for your soap than your shed?
Nope. My soap-making efforts share a large shed-bench with electronics, woodwork, and bicycle repairs. The soap has managed to stake and defend a claim to the southern half of that bench and I've assembled a tall open wooden shelf at the end of the bench.

I find (and your climate is pretty similar to ours but yours is a bit cooler) that you need to cure high OO soap about 3 months on racks then you can put them in cardboard boxes with some air flow. Curing space needs to be cool with good airflow or if the airflow isn’t good, a place where a fan can be used on really hot or humid days. Not where there are great temperature fluctuations. An open shelf in a room on the south side of your house that doesn’t get E or W sun.

So far I have left in moulds on bench for 12- 24 hours, left the loaf / block on towel on rack for 0 - 12 hours, and then, after cutting, put the blocks on a cake-cooling rank on a shelf and covered with a towel for weeks - months. From there they've gone into open-topped plastic storage boxes, on lower shelves, with towels over the top.

I do get some environmental variation, as you suggest, but it's kinda what I have to live with. A few months ago many of my stored soaps (and syndets) started 'sweating' and had a sticky surface. That was ucharacteristicallyhot-humid weather,andnow they're all fine again.

Hygiene, while scoffed at by some, is important especially for aged soap - gloves when handling (every time), regularly cleaning the cloth they sit on, not sitting them directly on steel or timber, don’t unmold them on dirty surfaces. Keep dust to a minimum.

Hmmm, interesting. My workings are very much not-hygienic at that level, although I have been improving the work environment gradually.

Use distilled or filtered water in your mix. Don’t use lavender FO or EO.

I get my water at a spring out of an ancient aquifer. It is not distilled, probably has a moderate mineral content, but is quite clean.
Much as I love lavender (and vanilla) I have stopped using it in my CP-soap.

It is really disappointing to cure a soap for 12 months then to discover DOS.

Yes, no doubt. Luckily for me I still see everything as being pretty much experimental.

Ps: good work on being patient about waiting for your Castile to cure. Keep some for another 6 -12 months and you will be a convert forever! :)

Thanks. I was intrigued with SaltedFig's advice and wanted to see that process in action. Worth the wait.
 
Oh well we do what we can.
You might find at the very least cardboard boxes are better than plastic storage boxes. Your call.

I do have a heap of cardboard boxes in the corner, from soap-making ingredient deliveries. They came in very handy for gift wrapping over the last few days and, yes, I could divert some of them for longer duration soap aging purposes. Thanks.
 
Hygiene, while scoffed at by some, is important especially for aged soap - gloves when handling (every time), regularly cleaning the cloth they sit on, not sitting them directly on steel or timber, don’t unmold them on dirty surfaces. Keep dust to a minimum.

Hmmm, interesting. My workings are very much not-hygienic at that level, although I have been improving the work environment gradually.

I'd second Penelopejane's advice on hygiene - I've noticed that some of my soap dough practice pieces (which were formed by hand, without gloves) have got DOS from the handling. I washed my hands before forming them, but they were only to work out shapes, so I didn't bother with gloves for them. The DOS follows the shaping ... where there's lots of handling, there's lots of DOS and where they were only lightly handled, there's none (yet - it will spread). Fortunately, I used gloves for the final pieces (which were made from the same soap batch), and they have no DOS on them.

I suspect there's more to it than just being clean (which is still important), it might also be how the soap interacts with body chemistry.

Because pure Olive soaps take such a very long time to cure, they also tend to be a little reactive for a lot longer than most soap recipes, so I reckon they remain a bit sensitive to handling (with bare hands) even months after they are first made.

Thanks. I was intrigued with SaltedFig's advice and wanted to see that process in action. Worth the wait.

It's lovely to receive positive feedback. Thank you :)
 
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