My love affair with soap

Right now my bathroom looks like a soap graveyard. I have over five bars in my shower not to mention the numerous bars I have amassed from soap swaps with other soapers. Currently in rotation I have a ginger and lime bar, clean cotton, plain unscented, black raspberry, and buttermilk and honey. A lot of times I have different bars on my curing racks that I just can't seem to wait until they have fully cured to test out. You see that is the thing with cold process soaps. You can't make a batch today and use it tomorrow. Well I take that back. You can if you are making hot process soap. You can literally make hot process soap today and use it today if you wish. Although I would wait a week with it to let it harden up good.

Cold Process soap making is quite different.It takes a full six weeks to let it cure and the soap continues to saponify fully. Curing helps drop the PH level of soap down to a mild state where it won't irritate your skin if formulated properly. I have tried fresh cold process soap as early as the next day just because I could. I wouldn't sell them to a consumer without letting it have a full cure because if I did the bars would be very harsh on someones skin.


Hot process soap is nice because you are basically cooking the soap in your pot with a heating element via a stove or crock pot. It finishes up it's saponification with the cook. Saponification is the process that starts the chemical reaction with your mixture and turns it into real soap.

Man I have a hell of an addiction for this process. My monthly credit card bill proves it.