After now having made several batches of soap, I find myself very frustrated and impatient while I wait on the curing process to complete. It has only been 3 weeks since I made the my first soap batch, but it seems like much longer. From my reading, I am sure that some soap types will take longer to cure than other but how long?!? The length of time would not be a problem if I knew what to expect from each of the different oils, essential oils and colouring, but as I am still a little unsure how it is all going, I am keen to try them out.
As a scientist, I have become increasingly unhappy about the just waiting a recommended set amount of time until curing should be done - surely different climates and storage environments will have an effect of speed of this, so back to the internet I went. I found this great blog post from Adventures With The Sage written in 2013 which suggests a simple answer to my concerns - cue cards! The idea is simple - weigh the same bar of soap from a batch regularly and record the weight. When the bar stops losing weight (i.e. losing water), then curing is complete and the soap is ready to use.
I have knocked up some of these cards, and am now weighing the sap batches every day or so.... we are still losing a little weight each day - around 0.2-3g ish.
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