How are cold process soaps made and why do they need curing?
The curing process is vital for improving the quality of your cold process soaps, it's why we won't sell soaps unless they have a very minimum cure time of 4 weeks, and even longer for our baby soaps, double that cure time to over 8 weeks. Here at The Good Soap all of our soap bars are made in our workshop in the garden of our premises. We currently make Salt Soaps, Shave Soaps, Baby Soaps, Dog Soap, Kids Soaps, Soap / Shampoo Bars and Pumice Soaps. Once they have been in their moulds for roughly 24 hours they are unmoulded and then taken on trays up to our curing room, which I'm happy to announce is next door to my bedroom, oh the beautiful scent in my house!
Why do we cure soaps?
All of our soap bars are cold process soaps, this means that they are made by mixing heated oils + with a liquid such as water or milk + sodium hydroxide. The cold process part is the 'after part' where the bars are left to sit with air allowed to circulate around them. This allows the bars to saponify, the sodium hydroxide does it's work to turn the oil and liquid mixture into soap, basically, turn into soap rather than just a block of oils. The liquid evaporates during this time and over the weeks the bars becomes milder, the bars become harder and the bars become better quality and longer lasting.
The technical side of soap making
We think of a soap as being solid, but really it is a mix of crystals surrounded by a film of liquid that is made up of water, glycerin, soluable chemicals and soap molecules. A fresh bar of soap is a jumbled mix of fatty acids with a very large liquid phase, larger crystals and soap molecules. The stearic and palmitic fatty acids found in soap is what creates the bubbly lather and in the beginning these are a lot larger in comparison to the other fatty acid componants. Over the curing time there becomes less water, more soap molecules and more tightly packed crystaline structure leading to a better lather and a high quality longer lasting natural soap bar.
Did you know....?
The professional name for a soap maker is a Soaper. That's not very exciting is it although we are very proud to be Soapers here!
by Dawn Rhodes
www.the-good-soap.co.uk