How Long Does it Take You?

One of our most common questions that we hear is "How long does it take you to make the soap?" That should be an easy answer, but ... not really. If we just start at the point where we pour the milk, it takes about half an hour to make a batch. Then we have to pour it into the mold, and wait. 24 hours later, if we're lucky, the soap is ready to unmold. If it's a log mold, it's a simple process. If it's a set of moldeds, that can take a bit longer as each mold needs special care, and some need time in the freezer to make it safe to unmold them. Once the soap is out of the mold, then it gets put on a drying rack and there it ages for at least a month. Why? Because we need to make sure the chemical reaction is complete. Then we need to evaporate the extra water from the soap. Finally, the longer the soap sits, the hard it gets as the process of crystalization happens. This allows our soaps to hold up longer in humid conditions, or just regular use. Without that time, the soap breaks down much faster, and our customers don't get the best product possible. So is it thirty minutes? 24 hours? 30 days? That's the tricky part of the answer. All of that is just a part of making the actual soap. Another time I'll go into what it takes to get the milk to the house. That's a whole other story.