What are your favorite type of soap molds

After using several types of soap molds and different materials, I think my favorites are wooden loaf molds lined with freezer paper. I am curious to know what other soap-makers prefer to use. Silicone loaf molds, individual bar molds, etc.

I love all my children. Don't make me choose.

For things that set up fast like salt bars or pine tar, I love my silicon individual bars ones.

I just got an all-silicone T&S mold and love it.

I also love my wooden slab mold that I line.

I have a wooden mold with silicon liner that I love.

So all of them... except those individual hard plastic ones that should have four spots instead of three. Those are a pita to unmold. My gnomes' noses always fall off.

For loaf molds I like wooden lined with freezer paper. I wouldn't mind trying one of those thin silicone liners though. I really like silicone individual molds for salt bars and my 1lb silicone slab mold for smaller batches. I use a 3" PVC pipe for shampoo bars.

My new tall skinny 5 lb wooden mold and freezer paper! But I also have a red silicon mold that makes individual rectangles, it's my second favorite. I often make extra so I can use both

I'm with Snappy ~ I love them all! For my 5 lb recipes, I like my wood, log molds. For smaller 2 lb batches, I like my silicone loaves. For salt I like my individual cavity molds. When I'm testing a fragrance, I use my 4" sq silicone mold. If I want to play with a design, I like my silicone or wood slab molds. I just can't pick a favorite!

I like my acrylic mold from Soap Making Resource, and for guest soaps I use those little plastic molds that have three, instead of four, also. I find rubbing them with mineral spirits just before I pour, and freezing them for an hour before demolding makes them slip right out.

silicone all the way.... i have a few of them custom made locally..

i started with wood molds lined with something similar like freezer paper. i hate lining. period. i have 1 hdpe mold that i don't use much. i don't hate it, but i just prefer my silis. they are so easy to use and clean. molding and unmolding are a breeze!

I too love anything silicone. I have 8 silicone lined wood loafs and I use individual cavity molds for my salt bars or my Kelsei slab with dividers. I also have 3 slab molds, those I have to line but they are pretty easy. I have 2- 6lb and 1- 12-15 lb. Which one I use depends on what I want to do. Column pour and funnel swirls work best in my slabs.

I started out with wooden molds lined with freezer paper, which I always hated folding and taping. I soon moved on to silicone loaf molds, and never looked back. I have several of them in different sizes and also individual decorative silicone molds. Unlike others, I've never had a problem with bubbles. My molds release cleanly and easily. I would probably make a whole lot less soap if it weren't for the ease of silicone molds. I also have some Milky Way plastic cavity molds, which I like, but use a lot less, because they can be tricky to get the soap out. For rounds, I use Crystal Lite containers, which produce a nice size soap, and are easy to remove. But silicone will always be number one with me.

Each mold type has something different that I love. I love my 4 log HPDE mold b/c the bars come out perfectly straight, but sometimes soap sticks. I love my silicone log mold b/c it's easy to unmold, but there's just a bit of buldge in the middle and the middle bars are just a touch trapazoidal. I love the gorgeous shapes of individual molds, but I hate un molding them. (and that they hold 3 and not 4).

Like Snappyllama, I love all my children.

Having said that, though, if I had to choose only one mold to take with me to a desert isle, my absolute #1 choice to take with me would be my first ever 'real' mold, which was given to me as a gift by my sis who was one of the first testers my soap. I suppose that gifting me with a mold was a hopeful sign that she really like my soap!

Anyway, the mold was handmade out of wood by a former member here (does anyone remember TOG molds?), and as troublesome as his latter-made molds proved to be according to the testimonials I read, mine was an early-made mold and has never given me a problem in all the 9 years that I've had it- and I still use it a lot.

The mold is a completely collapsible, very clever combination log and slab mold that holds 4 lbs. of soap total.

I can either make a single 2-pound loaf with it, or two 2-pound loaves side by side at the same time, or I can use it as a slab mold. Filled part-way, the slab will make 9 bars of the thickness of my choice, and filled all the way up to the top, it will make 18 bars @ 1.25" thickness. Also- I have not done this yet, but I suppose it can also make 1 or 2 sample 1-lb batches if I pour only part-way into the loaf compartments (they should each make 4 slab-style bars).

It came with Funky-Foam liners, which I've long since discarded for better lining material- i.e., heat-resistant mylar, and also silicone fondant mats and/or bubble-wrap.

Anyway, I love the versatility of this mold, and also the ease of unmolding no matter which different lining option I might choose to use with it at any given time, all because of the mold's complete collapsibility.

I also have a back-up mold of this exact type, but it is slightly taller in height to make fatter/thicker slab bars if filled all the way to the top. I bought it from Dianna's Sugar Plum Sundries. It may or not be TOG-made, I don't know since it doesn't have his mark on it, but it works just as great as the other one.

My other well-loved 'babies' are:

-my Woodfield's collapsible tall and skinny wood log mold with silicone liner

-my Brambleberry collapsible wooden vertical mold with removable divider. I don't like the acrylic liners it came with, but it thankfully takes very nicely to other lining materials such as silicone fondant liners, mylar, and bubble-wrap

-my 1 lb. wooden collapsible tester mold made by TOG

-my Brambleberry PVC tube mold with its awesome (included) liner

-my 2 ED silicone molds with swirling inserts, even in spite of the pesky bubbling problem they give me. The different swirling possibilities that the inserts give me, and also the different cutting choices that the dimensions of the mold give me, make all the planing that I have to do afterwards worthwhile.

-I also love my Milkyway-type molds for pouring off any excess batter, and also using them for squishing my soap scraps into in order to make decorative bars out of them.


IrishLass

I love all my molds...I did away with lining a long time ago so that makes me love them even more

I have silicone loaf molds that I adore, slab molds, single bar molds, and even some home made coroplast TS molds that I made ( I got 5 molds out of one $10.00 sheet of coroplast )

SoapSap said:

After using several types of soap molds and different materials, I think my favorites are wooden loaf molds lined with freezer paper. I am curious to know what other soap-makers prefer to use. Silicone loaf molds, individual bar molds, etc.

Click to expand...

Wood molds and cardboard boxes lined with freezer paper are both my favorites. Not a huge fan of silicone.

IrishLass said:

-I also love my Milkyway-type molds for pouring off any excess batter, and also using them for squishing my soap scraps into in order to make decorative bars out of them.


IrishLass

Click to expand...

What do you mean by this ? Do you seriously just squish the scraps in the mold or do you also pour new soap in there, or what?

I have a quite a few Milky Way molds, but don't really like to use them. But they are so darn cute, sometimes I can't help myself.
Mostly I use my wooden log molds, my incredible son in law made for me. The sides are hinged so it's collapsible. I line with mylar liners I made and reuse over and over. Clean up is super easy.

Pepsi Girl said:

What do you mean by this ? Do you seriously just squish the scraps in the mold...?

Click to expand...

Yep- that's exactly what I do!

As soon as I am done beveling my freshly unmolded and cut bars, I gather up the trimmings, spritz them with a little alcohol from a spray bottle that I keep on hand (to keep the trimmings on the soft/moist side), and then I smoosh them together with my gloved hands, in much the same way one would smoosh pieces of modeling clay together.

Once I have them all stuck together in a cohesive mass, I then press the mass into a cavity (or cavities) of one or more of my decorative Milkyway molds, making sure to press firmly enough to so that no air bubbles survive.

Then I pop the mold(s) into the freezer to sit for a few hours or overnight (or maybe a few days if I forgot to take them out, which oftentimes happens, lol).

Once I take the molds out of the freezer, I briefly run them under lukewarm water for a few seconds and they pop right out like buttah.

Here is a pic of some of them:




I really like doing this instead of saving my scraps for confetti soap, which oftentimes never gets made, and so the scraps go to waste. Since I've been doing the 'smoosh thing', none of my scraps has ever gone to waste. They all get used up.

IrishLass

Thanks IrishLass that's a great idea.

I love my 5 lb wooden log molds with the sliding wood bottom and the silicone liners for same that I got from Bramble Berry. I also love/use the Milky Way molds for melt and pour soaps...they are so CUTE!