Curing Shelf

[Ianto]

Does anyone know if soap will react with chrome plating?

My soap cures on the side of our fireplace wrap around mantle. I don't really have anywhere else to put it for curing - it needs to be somewhere where the dogs can't get to it and in the summer it the coolest part of the house since the window a/c unit is very close. I was looking at this: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0002O9HLC/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20 The depth is perfect for the mantle.

At the moment I only have room for 4 pounds of soap to cure. It is just enough room for soap for personal use. I would like to have more curing room to make some gift soap and occasionally try some stuff out (I would love to make coffee soap, cucumber soap, tea soap - but I don't really have much room for failed experiments!).

I think if I bought 2 of those, I could make it a 5 tier shelf and have plenty of room to cure soap in a small space.

 

[Lindy]

I have something very similar and what I do is place the rubber mats that have little holes in the that are used as shelf liners. That way the soap is breathing and I'm not worrying about whether something in my soap is going to react with the chrome. Fragrances and essential oils can do some pretty funky things...

 

[krunt]

hi ianto, yes, your soap will react with chrome plated shelving. when i first started soaping, i cured my soap on chrome plated shelving, and where the soap was in contact with the chrome, dos occurred. it's not related to fragrance or essential oils either, as i don't use them. as lindy suggested, you would need to place something between the soap and the shelves, so the soap is not in contact with the chrome.

 

[christinak]

I built a rack that you can hang on the wall....I built it in like 40 minutes and it cost under 20 bucks. The pic is on my facebook page I'd recommend it to anyone, it's awesome and you can fit it anywhere because you can build it to your own dimensions. It's just wide enough for a bar of soap and there is 0 wasted space. Good luck to you!!

 

[squeakycleanuk]

maybe you could lay some grease proof paper under the soaps

 

[Ruthie]

Some use tea towels between the shelf and soap. I'm super cheap so I am using a double layer cut from an old sheet.

 

[Lotus]

Hey, I like the tea towel idea. I do believe I'll do that, since I have a TON of them. That's all I use in the kitchen. Does anyone know about stainless steel for curing, though? I know it's the best for materials within making soap, but what about curing? You know, long periods of time.

 

[soapguy]

I don't use anything special to cure my soaps, but you might try stainless steel oven racks. You could stand them up like dominoes.

 

[Lotus]

Thank you, soaps!! : )

 

[cursivearts]

I use Wilton stackable cake cooling racks. but they are coated with that nonstick stuff (teflon?) and I would rather not find out if they react, so I have lined them with good ol' brown paper bags (always the unprinted side toward the soap). And they unstack easily for turning the soap. A set of three at AC Moore was 11$ and I used a 40% off coupon and got them for about 7.

 

[Ianto]

Thank you all for the great ideas! Before I get the racks from amazon I will have to go shopping and see if I can find some of these other ideas. Hopefully I can find something cheaper. My mantle is 8 1/2 inches deep so I really do need something that is skinny and stack-able.

 

[soapguy]

Basically, you want to avoid placing your soap in metals that can rust. You might also want to avoid humidity, sunlight and certain oils. The addition of antioxidants such as Vitimin E to your soap also seems to help prevent DOS.

 

[Bicycle808]

I use something like this:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004BDP692/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

It's vinyl-coated steel wire, very strong. I bought 2, but put all of the shelves on one unit, so it fits a lot....

hth