Like the others have said, you can use your soap at any time once saponification is complete and there is no sign (via a zap test) of the presence of still-active lye. For the majority of my own CP soaps, that's as soon as one day after I've poured and molded my soap, but my soap is only just an infant at that point. Although it looks like a normal soap should look, and it lathers when water and friction is applied, time and experience have shown that it doesn't feel as gentle or lather anywhere near as copiously as it does after a four to six week cure. It also doesn't last as long as a 4-6 week cured soap.
You can certainly use less water if you wish. I myself prefer using less water than what is known as a 'full water' amount. Using less water enables me to unmold and cut and bevel my soap quicker than a full-water soap, but even though I use a water discount, my soap has shown that it still needs a cure of
at least 4 weeks for it to perform at a more satisfactory level in terms of lather and gentleness, and not melt away so fast in the shower. That's because the crystalline lattice structure that Amd mentioned above is still being built inside, and it needs those weeks of cure to reach full maturity.
For my soaps, the difference in weeks of cure between a full-water soap and a water-discounted soap (in terms of when my soap has reached its earliest best according to my own satisfaction), is a difference of 2 weeks. In other words, my full-water soaps don't reach what I consider to be their "earliest best" until
at least six weeks of cure have gone by, and my water-discounted soaps don't reach what I consider to be their "earliest best" until
at least 4 weeks have gone by. "Earliest best" is when my soaps have reached the minimum satisfactory level of maturity and performance to where I'm happy using it myself and also would not be ashamed of presenting it to a loved one as a gift.
IrishLass
