Cutting Homemade Cold Process Soap Bars

My homemade all natural lye and oil soap has been curing for a few days. Now it is time to cut the soap into bars.

After pouring cold process soap into the forms, it will still be soft to the touch the first couple days. It has to sit for a day or two so it hardens a bit before you can cut it.

I am making soap the old fashioned way. With no electricity and on a wood stove using a cast iron pot. This is to show you what it would be like in a post collapse or shtf scenario when you want to make soap.

First I removed the soap from the forms. These are large one pound batches of soap. These need to be cut into four 4 ounce bars of soap. Most soap is about four ounces.

I scored the soap with a knife in half and then half again to mark it.

Next you just cut it by pressing firmly down and moving the knife gently forward and backward to cut through the bar of soap.

Mine was sitting a few days too long and got quite hard. My tiny house on wheels is dry and has a severe lack of humidity this winter so my soap hardened a bit too fast on me. It did not cut very pretty or neatly but again, this is survival soap, or old fashioned soap and the important thing is that it works, not how it looks.

I will be using this soap for myself anyway so its appearance is not important to me.

Now that the soap is cut into 4 ounce bars, I set it on a plate or board to cure. The curing process for cold process soap takes about 6 to 8 weeks on average.

You can test the soap periodically using the zap test. This means you touch a tiny bit of it to your tongue and if it zaps like a nine volt battery then it is not yet cured.

When you can touch the soap to your tongue with no zap then it is ready for use.

Properly cured lye soap is very gentle on your skin and actually contains a high natural glycerin content. This is a natural moisturizer and is good for you.

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