planning on shrinkage??

[Wyndham Dennison]

I have a friend who makes soaps and had given some to another friend of mine. When I asked him about the size, the soap maker told me that they have shrunk over the past year and that was something to live with.
Because of this observation on shrinkage, is it better esthetics , to plan for an appealing size and weight by making the fresh cut larger by about 10+% to have a more appealing size after curing.It seems the molds out there do not factor in this, but maybe I'm not understanding what people see in bar sizes .
Just wondering what other thought

 

[shunt2011]

I can only speak on my personal preference. Soap does lose weight and depending on lye concentration can warp if too much liquid is used. When I started thinking about selling and even for personal use I prefer a healthy size bar. So, when I had my multi wire soap cutter made I had the spacing done at 1 1/4 inches. I didn't want just a 4 oz bar of soap. Again something a bit larger. So when my soaps are cured they are about 5 oz or a bit more. Size will also depend on the mold measurements. The Brambleberry molds make smaller soaps than the Nurture Soap molds. At least those I have. My mold of choice is the Nurture molds.

 

[Wyndham Dennison]

thanks for the info. Vermont soaps, on their web site mentioned that their fresh cut bar weighed 4.2 oz and the cured 3.2 oz from water evap. This is where I was going with the weight.
I was planning on around 4.5 x 1 x 2.75 to get about a 4.5 oz cured bar if my math is close