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My Reward PointsCuring is the final and extremely important stage of soap making, where the bars are left to rest and mature. This slow process turns a raw block of soap into a hard, durable, and silky smooth bar.
Knowing the soap-curing process is important for any soap maker who wishes to make a high-quality finished product.
Why Curing Soap Is Important – Benefits of Soap Curing
Curing is one of the most important factors of superior soaps. This period of waiting allows several significant changes, giving better qualities to the end product, feel, and durability, improving the experience of the user.
- Harder, Longer-Lasting Bars: During curing time, moisture escapes slowly from the soap bar, changing the soap from a soft cake that quickly dissolves in your shower.
- Improved Lather: Curing soap gives a more extraordinary and creamier lather, and bubbles take longer to collapse. They feel much more luxurious against the skin than a fresh soap.
- Milder on the Skin: Curing of soap allows complete processes of saponification, where all lye has been converted into a gentler bar with a lower pH.
- Better Feel: As water content decreases, the bar's texture improves significantly. It becomes less sticky or soft to the touch, feeling more like a professional, finished product.
What Happens During the Soap Curing Process?
During the process of curing, two major and invisible processes occur. These changes help give the soap better hardness, mildness, and general overall improvement.
- Water Evaporation: At the end of the curing process, most of the weight loss will have been due to moisture evaporating. As this moisture evaporates from the bar, the soap is firm, lighter, and more durable.
- Crystallization & Saponification: Here, the molecules of soap rearrange themselves in a more stable crystalline structure. While that is happening, the last bits of lye and oil react with each other in order to complete saponification, neutralizing the bar.
How Long to Cure Cold Process Soap?
The most appropriate curing time for cold-processed soap varies according to the ingredients in the recipe. Although waiting is crushing, it's mandatory for your soap quality.
- 4 Weeks: This is the average cure time for nearly all cold process recipes. A good balance for this time to allow the bar to harden sufficiently and become mild enough for use.
- 6 Weeks or Longer: Those soaps containing a high percentage of soft oils, like pure olive oil (Castile) soap, contain more water and, hence, need further time to get hard. The longer the curing period, the better the bar.
- Hot Process Soap: Technically, it's fine to use the soap within a day's time, but it is better to allow hot-processed soap to cure for another one to two weeks for drying and hardening.
Best Conditions for Curing Soap
Of course, it's about having the recipe for your soap curing, but even having that perfect recipe is not enough. Create a proper condition for your soap to ensure that it hardens evenly and gets the best out of it.
- Use a Drying Rack: Hang soaps on an open wire rack or mesh tray to allow air circulation around all sides of the bar to allow even drying.
- Keep Soaps Spaced Apart: Leave around an inch between each bar. This ensures air can flow freely and prevents moisture from being trapped in soft spots.
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Store in a Cool, Dry Area: Store in a Cool, Dry Area: A cool and dry area with good ventilation but low humidity is ideal, especially if your soap is infused with essential oils like lavender or peppermint, which can lose fragrance in humid conditions..
- Flip Weekly: Every week, turn over the bars. In this way, all the surfaces are made available to equal shares of the air, promoting even hardening and preventing one side from being kept soft.
- Humidity Tip: If you live in a humid climate, there is much benefit to the hardening process and protection against sticky soap by drying the air in your curing room with a dehumidifier.
- Avoid Metal Surfaces: Never cure soap on reactive metals like aluminum or tin. The soap will fight the metal to make it discolor and leave dreaded orange spots.
Do You Need to Cure Hot Process Soap?
Yes, hot process soaps complete saponification during the cook, hence, making them risk-free for use sooner; however, they still contain excess moisture. For this reason, it is recommended to cure hot-process soap for at least one to two weeks to dry it out.
Can You Speed Up the Soap Curing Process?
Patience, it seems, would be the key ingredient, but there are safe methods to encourage a more speedy cure, although heating is certainly the worst thing one can do to rush the fundamental chemical process.
Safe ways to reduce curing time:
- Place a small fan on a low setting directly facing your curing rack to increase air circulation around the soaps.
- Install a dehumidifier inside the curing room to rid the air of moisture.
Methods to avoid:
- Do not use an oven or dehydrator; this can cause the soap to crack or melt.
- Sun's rays pour heat onto the soap. It damages the scents and ultimately causes discoloration of the soap.
Soap Curing Mistakes to Avoid
Sometimes avoiding a few common mistakes could mean the difference between creating a perfect batch and a disappointingly bad one. These mistakes, quite trivial as they might seem, are enough to break the entire process of hardening the soap.
- Curing in a Closed Box: Keeping soap in a sealed container or unventilated cabinet may trap moisture in bars for slow drying to create soft and sticky soap.
- Not Flipping Soap: Failure to rotate the bars causes them to remain partially cured, as the side facing down will lose moisture, cure unevenly, and may cause it to develop soft spots or stick to the shelf.
- Using Metal Racks: Uncoated metal racks can react with the soap, causing rust-colored spots known as "dreaded orange spots" (DOS) and ruining the appearance of your bars.
- Packaging Too Early: This can trap water and ruin the fragrance of delicate essential oils like chamomile or eucalyptus if the soap is wrapped too soon.
- Being Impatient: The worst mistake is to shorten the cure time. If it's cured less, it will be soft, will not lather very well, and may not be as mild.
Soap Curing Checklist
- Place cut bars on a ventilated rack with ample space between them.
- Store the curing rack in a cool, dry room with sufficient airflow.
- Flip the soap bars once a week for even drying.
- Wait four to six weeks before you use it or package your soap.
Conclusion
Curing soap takes time, but it pays off well. By letting your soap evaporate moisture properly and finish saponification, you turn that simple blend of lye and oils into a hard, gentle, and high-performing bar. Learning to cure soap is the primary skill that raises one up in the craft and ensures all the bars you make will be of the highest caliber all the time
