How To Store Soap?

Storing handmade soap is quite easy and simple. If you are producing your soap by hot process or cold process, your soap will only be ready to be used after it has fully cured/dried. Therefore, be ready to store curing soap in a ventilated place.

Learn the best practices on how to store soap. Storing soap one way or the other depends on the process you have used to make it.

Storing Handmade Soap

The best place to store your handmade soap is in the open air. One idea is storing them in a wooden box that also serves as a farmer’s market display. Simply leaving them on the curing rack until they’re needed is also common.

You can also store your soap in a sealed container, if you’re worried about the natural scent fading, but you need to be very careful with your soap catching trapped moisture inside the container. The bars should be cured in the open for 6-8 weeks and be bone dry before you put them in. 

Next, you must put a few silica gel packets in the container to absorb any moisture. Just know that keeping them stored like this can become an issue if any moisture makes its way into the box.

how to store soap

What Do You Wrap Homemade Soap In?

Wrapping Melt and Pour Soap

Melt and pour soap tends to form glycerin dew, or sweat, in contact with air humidity, especially in higher humidity places. This is due to the added glycerin content in the soap formula (comparing it to cold process or hot process): a layer of glycerin at the surface of the soap attracts humidity from the air. See all about melt and pour soap sweating and how to avoid it. This may also happen with cold process/hot process soap, but much less frequently.

When you’re making your melt and pour soaps, the soap base has been already made and cured, so it doesn’t need to cure or dry from excess of water. To prevent glycerin dew, a cosmetic issue, it is a best practice to wrap the soaps in shrink-wrap paper immediately after it gets solid in the mold and you popped it out. Plastic film also works, but doesn’t fully prevent soap sweating unless it is in full contact with the soap surface.

Wrapping Cold/Hot Process Soap

You can wrap cold process soap in paper packages or any that allows air flow. But wrapping them in plastic is a bad idea though for two reasons. First of all, single-use plastic isn’t good for the planet. Secondly, if there’s even the tiniest amount of moisture still in the bars it won’t be able to escape. That means that excess moisture could cause your bars to get Dreaded Orange Spots, literally orange spots on the bars. The spots can get icky and have an unpleasant odor.

To offer soap, I’ve bought small celophane bags. Celophane is biodegrable, and you can cut a small corner of the package to let air go inside.

How Long Will Homemade Soap Last?

This can be easily obtained by looking at all the labels of all the ingredients you used to make soap. The closest best-by date is the best-by date of your new batch of soap. Usually, soap lasts in good conditions from 6 months up to one year, but this is just a rule-of-thumb.

Making soap doesn’t prolong the life of oil, especially oil about to go off. Using old oil can also cause the Dreaded Orange Spots mentioned before. Rancid oil in soap has an odd and unpleasant scent and though it will clean, it’s not something you really want to use on your skin. It pays to invest in fresh ingredients when you make handmade soap.

Learn also about best practices on how to make handmade soap last while using it in How Do You Use Handmade Soap?

Please, take a look at these Beginners Recipes to start making soaps at home:

Also, check out Free Cold Process Soap Recipes.

4 thoughts on “How To Store Soap?”

  1. Hey there! 

    Nice  write up, I love it have been able to learn that The best place to store handmade soap is in the open air. One idea is storing them in a wooden box that also serves as a farmer’s market display, because if you store them in a place with high humidity it tends to melt or even loose its scents as time flies. 

    • Hello Astrostar and thanks for your comment.

      Well, you are right, and I tend to keep my soaps on a shelf, drying in open air until I use them 🙂 no package or additional storage needed. Talk about going zero-waste in saving plastic bottles, bags or boxes 🙂

      Cheers,

      Sofia

  2. Hello

    This is a very good topic, I wasn’t aware that there was a special knack in making soap. You were very thorough and to the point. It is amazing that such a simple product can easily be made and the point of letting it cure in open air is brilliant. Job well done and keep up the good work.

    • Hellp TSawler and thanks for your comment.

      Haha, we are just replicating what soapmakers have been making for centuries. In some places, where the weather is warmer, soap was even cured outdoors.

      I am glad you enjoyed this post. You will find many more in my blog about soapmaking.

      Cheers,

      Sofia

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