Greetings from New Zealand

[Lin19687]

Hi and Welcome !!!

 

[dxw]

Have you worked out a better storage area for your soap than your shed?

Nope. My soap-making efforts share a large shed-bench with electronics, woodwork, and bicycle repairs. The soap has managed to stake and defend a claim to the southern half of that bench and I've assembled a tall open wooden shelf at the end of the bench.

I find (and your climate is pretty similar to ours but yours is a bit cooler) that you need to cure high OO soap about 3 months on racks then you can put them in cardboard boxes with some air flow. Curing space needs to be cool with good airflow or if the airflow isn’t good, a place where a fan can be used on really hot or humid days. Not where there are great temperature fluctuations. An open shelf in a room on the south side of your house that doesn’t get E or W sun.

So far I have left in moulds on bench for 12- 24 hours, left the loaf / block on towel on rack for 0 - 12 hours, and then, after cutting, put the blocks on a cake-cooling rank on a shelf and covered with a towel for weeks - months. From there they've gone into open-topped plastic storage boxes, on lower shelves, with towels over the top.

I do get some environmental variation, as you suggest, but it's kinda what I have to live with. A few months ago many of my stored soaps (and syndets) started 'sweating' and had a sticky surface. That was ucharacteristicallyhot-humid weather,andnow they're all fine again.

Hygiene, while scoffed at by some, is important especially for aged soap - gloves when handling (every time), regularly cleaning the cloth they sit on, not sitting them directly on steel or timber, don’t unmold them on dirty surfaces. Keep dust to a minimum.

Hmmm, interesting. My workings are very much not-hygienic at that level, although I have been improving the work environment gradually.

Use distilled or filtered water in your mix. Don’t use lavender FO or EO.

I get my water at a spring out of an ancient aquifer. It is not distilled, probably has a moderate mineral content, but is quite clean.
Much as I love lavender (and vanilla) I have stopped using it in my CP-soap.

It is really disappointing to cure a soap for 12 months then to discover DOS.

Yes, no doubt. Luckily for me I still see everything as being pretty much experimental.

​

Ps: good work on being patient about waiting for your Castile to cure. Keep some for another 6 -12 months and you will be a convert forever!

Thanks. I was intrigued with SaltedFig's advice and wanted to see that process in action. Worth the wait.

 

[penelopejane]

Oh well we do what we can.
You might find at the very least cardboard boxes are better than plastic storage boxes. Your call.

 

[dxw]

Oh well we do what we can.
You might find at the very least cardboard boxes are better than plastic storage boxes. Your call.

I do have a heap of cardboard boxes in the corner, from soap-making ingredient deliveries. They came in very handy for gift wrapping over the last few days and, yes, I could divert some of them for longer duration soap aging purposes. Thanks.

 

[SaltedFig]

Hygiene, while scoffed at by some, is important especially for aged soap - gloves when handling (every time), regularly cleaning the cloth they sit on, not sitting them directly on steel or timber, don’t unmold them on dirty surfaces. Keep dust to a minimum.

Hmmm, interesting. My workings are very much not-hygienic at that level, although I have been improving the work environment gradually.

I'd second Penelopejane's advice on hygiene - I've noticed that some of my soap dough practice pieces (which were formed by hand, without gloves) have got DOS from the handling. I washed my hands before forming them, but they were only to work out shapes, so I didn't bother with gloves for them. The DOS follows the shaping ... where there's lots of handling, there's lots of DOS and where they were only lightly handled, there's none (yet - it will spread). Fortunately, I used gloves for the final pieces (which were made from the same soap batch), and they have no DOS on them.

I suspect there's more to it than just being clean (which is still important), it might also be how the soap interacts with body chemistry.

Because pure Olive soaps take such a very long time to cure, they also tend to be a little reactive for a lot longer than most soap recipes, so I reckon they remain a bit sensitive to handling (with bare hands) even months after they are first made.

Thanks. I was intrigued with SaltedFig's advice and wanted to see that process in action. Worth the wait.

It's lovely to receive positive feedback. Thank you