Cutting soap post-cure?

[Zing]

Peeps, I got a request for several "tiny" soaps. A friend is hosting a long-weekend retreat and wants to give individual soaps to the guests. I have soaps I made April 15 and April 30. Can I cut it? I can experiment on some end pieces -- but wondered if you all had experience?

If worse comes to worse, I can also just give her full bars. Her retreat is Labor Day -- it's too late even if I made soap today.

 

[Ford]

proceed with caution?? dammit man, full steam ahead. Seriously though, experimentation never hurts. Maybe the fresher of the 2 batches. They are what 12-14 weeks old? This is recipezee dependent of course.

 

[dmcgee5034]

I cut fully cured and not extra fresh full size bars into smaller soaps for the ladies in my dentist office. I didn’t have an issue - I used my krinkle cutter. Keep us posted on how it goes.

 

[TheGecko]

Peeps, I got a request for several "tiny" soaps. A friend is hosting a long-weekend retreat and wants to give individual soaps to the guests. I have soaps I made April 15 and April 30. Can I cut it? I can experiment on some end pieces -- but wondered if you all had experience?

If worse comes to worse, I can also just give her full bars. Her retreat is Labor Day -- it's too late even if I made soap today.

I cut all my donations soaps in half...I use a knife though.

 

[Savage Daughter]

I have done this many times, especially when wanting to give people samples when I have run out of off-cuts & sample sized bars.

Definitely not an issue. The plus side is, as soon as you cut into those cured bars, the scent becomes even stronger as you're exposing the innards of the bar

 

[artemis]

I have cut some older bars and had a little bit of chipping at the edges. I wonder if you could soften them slightly by warming them for a bit in the oven? I would cut a bar and see what happens.

 

[DeeAnna]

It depends on the soap whether it cuts well after cure or not. Some is more brittle and tends to shatter or chip, but I've found most of my soap bars can be cut weeks or months after the initial cure with good results. You'll just have to try one and see how it goes -- chances are good you'll be fine. If you try a wire cutter and it struggles, I'd switch to a dough cutter (bench scraper).

One of the issues you can run into if you do this is warping. The water content inside the bar, even after a long cure, will be higher than the water content on the original outer surface. So if you slice a bar into two thinner bars, you may find the soap will warp a bit as moisture evaporates from the newly cut surface.

 

[ScentimentallyYours]

I don’t have a problem splitting full size bars several months after a cure. I make sure they are warmish (80°+F) and split them with a straight bread cutter down the center, meaning an equal amount of soap on either side of the cut. Then I cut each new piece in half. That gives me four trial size bars. I bevel the edges, and they look great! Try it out, @Zing. You’ll know with the first bar if it works for you.

 

[Vicki C]

I cut my “minis” this way all the time. I use my multi bar cutter to split them depth wise and my single wire cutter to cut them width wise. I’m no good with a knife. Works fine - soap made in April is plenty fresh enough.

 

[Ephemerella]

I do this all the time. I experiment with creating guest-sized bars in sampler sets. I've cut bars that were a few months old, but my recipe is simple, not salt or anything unusually brittle, etc. I use a high-quality chef's knife for all of my cutting, and I experience exactly what @DeeAnna says, I get warping a couple of days after the cut.

It's neat to see the inside of the bar after so much time has gone by though!