Size and weight of soap

[Blue1969]

I know this has been discussed in a few places, but I still need some answers, can somebody please help?
What would be the average size of a bar of soap?
If soap loses 10% weight during curing - dies it imply that it also loses 10% of its lenght, width and thickness?

 

[Michelle0803]

In my experience this depends on your initial recipe and if you are allowing for a water discount, among other things. However, in my experience, the entire bar of soap does shrink. I used to shrink-wrap my soaps and found it necessary to touch them up as they aged because they would continue to shrink as they hardened.

You could try cutting your soap, weighing it every week, and keeping track of the weight to see how much weight you are losing as the bar cures. You can also use a cloth tape measure to measure the size of the bar, thus tracking weight and size.

 

[Mobjack Bay]

Bars I’ve made using a 40% lye concentration eventually lose about 15% of their initial weight. Based on the bars I have in my soap archive, a bar cut to 2.5” x 3.5” will eventually shrink to approximately 2” x 3” when made at that lye concentration. I would expect the bars to shrink a bit more than that if I was using a lower lye concentration.

 

[Blue1969]

Thank you for your replies. Really appreciate the info.