Should I be making Christmas soap now?

[chibi-soap]

Hi,


I've just been posting about making a harder bar of soap and it occurred to me that one thing that makes soap harder is curing time. I have a bar from the very first batch I ever made and that it almost a year old now, and has got quite hard.

So if that's what I like, should I be making my soap for Christmas presents, and our own use next year, now?

 

[earlene]

If your recipes are high oleic, such as 100% Olive Oil Castile soap, then absolutely!

For me, I do prefer most of my soaps to have a longer cure, no matter what the recipe was that I used. My favorite bars of soap are always the ones that are older because they have usually become much better than when they were younger. Age seems to provide a more luxurious lather, that if it weren't for that fact that we can't claim soap is nourishing or moisturizing, it still feels as if it is.

 

[chibi-soap]

Would you call 70% OO high oleic?

 

[Misschief]

I'm pretty sure that some of the soaps I'm making now will become Christmas gifts come that time.

 

[earlene]

Would you call 70% OO high oleic?

Yes, if you look at the fatty acid profile of OO, it is 69% Oleic Acid. Even if the other 30% of the oils in the soap were very low in Oleic, you'd still have a very high Oleic soap. I think the lowest you could get with any combination where 70% is OO would be if the other 30% was straight Stearic Acid, and I am not even sure you'd be able to manage that even with HP.

But your question probably boils down to is a year enough time to cure a 70% OO soap, and I think the answer is probably yes, given the other oils are also high oleic oils. You can see that by looking at your lye calculator as you choose the oils.

 

[chibi-soap]

OK, so if I put my recipe in soap calc it's 55% oleic acid, so I guess I should get soaping!

 

[chibi-soap]

And... if I'm curing these soaps for months and months, does that whole time have to be out on the airy curing racks? Or can I wrap them and put them away after, say, 3 months? Or, say, can I weigh them once a week and when they stop losing weight/moisture, wrap them and put them away?

 

[earlene]

Others may have a different perspective, but I leave them unwrapped as long as I have room. With my Castiles (100% OO) I leave them unwrapped pretty much for 12 months, sometimes longer. But once I wrap my soaps in shrink wrap, I don't leave them out because what would be the point?

 

[shunt2011]

Once wrapped and labeled, they go into baseball card storage boxes. I like to have them well cured before wrapping and labeling. Though they still shrink some.

 

[jcandleattic]

I make soap all year long, however, I only sell at 4 shows during October and November, so yes, I start making my Christmas/season supply of soaps early in the year.

 

[SparksnFlash]

After running out of all but 3 bars of soap last Christmas, I started soaping for Christmas 2018 on January 20th (plus, I've found some great Christmas scents on sale - yipee!!)

 

[BrewerGeorge]

If you're still perfecting your recipe, you might be better served by waiting a bit. Six months is a long cure time for most anything not high oleic, giving you a few more months to experiment with recipes.