Re: sorry another newbie question - curing environment and w
Generally you want to avoid direct sunlight if you're using colorants (many fade in direct sunlight) and humidity with cold or hot process soaps. As far as ideal temperature, I would think whatever your room temp is fine. I don't see any problem with 50-90 degrees, just the humidity level.
I set mine on stacking shelves in my bedroom, and the shelf has kraft paper on top of it since they're metal cookie cooling racks, actually
The racks are just tall enough that I can put my 2.5 - 2.75 inch tall bars on them upright and still be able to put the next rack on.
Hot process I let sit on the racks for 2 weeks. Cold process I sit out for 4 weeks. After that, if its a batch for myself or my family or I'm going to stash them away for inventory, I just put them naked into a cardboard box and label the box. If I'm sending them to other people in the very near future, I do a cigar band type wrap that is 3 inches wide for a 3.5 inch wide soap, then I put my labels on the wrap - the ends are exposed so water evaporation can continue. Even after a 4-6 week cure, soaps can continue their "weight loss" and if you wrap when you box them up, the wraps can become so loose they can fall off or you have to rewrap/refasten the label. So I like to label right before I send them out
One thing to keep in mind is that cold and hot process soaps need to breathe to allow for the water evaporation, so shrink wrapping isn't something you want to do with them. Melt & pour soap, you DO want to wrap up tightly because otherwise you run into sweating problems with humidity so keep MP away from humidity is a big deal.
I know a lot of people use the baseball card storage boxes available from various places - I got a 2 pack of mine on Amazon and I need to order more LOL But I'm talking about this kind here
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lot-25-800-Coun ... vi-content I just wouldn't buy from them because of the shipping costs >.<
