Using the right soap making molds to shape your finished product should never be overlooked.
Although the quality of the soap and its skin care benefits are the priority, creating a unique look and feel can help you stand out from the crowd.
There are a variety of options for shaping your soap.
Which one you choose will mostly depend on your personality, preferences and soap making goals.
The first, and definitely most popular soap molding method is using individually pre-shaped soap making molds.
Individual molds can be purchased in all shapes and size and gives you the added convenience of not having to slice your soap into bars once your mixture has hardened.
Unfortunately, using pre-shaped soap molds does have a few drawbacks.
First of all, pouring your temporarily liquefied early stage soap into small 4 ounce soap bar molds is rather difficult to say the least.
Once you finally have your molds filled, you must then figure out how to thoroughly insulate each one using blankets and towels for proper curing.
Trust me, it's an arduous process to saran wrap and insulate each mold individually, especially if you created a large batch.
Furthermore, you have to be careful that you do not use melt and pour soap making molds when creating soap from scratch using the cold process method.
Cold process soap is extremely caustic during its initial stages because of the incorporation of sodium hydroxide.
Many molds made for melt and pour soap making are not formed out of the proper materials needed to withstand this chemical.
The second method of shaping your soap is to create a large soap loaf and then cut it into traditional bars.
This is my personal favorite soap molding method as it makes the creation of larger batches much easier.
You can buy a loaf soap mold from various online dealers or even your local craft shop.
They usually reveal their size by displaying how many pounds of soap they can hold.
I personally own a 4 pound mold and absolutely love it, but I've seen them as large as 12 pounds.
The final method is to get creative and make your own.
Wonderful soap molds can be created out of every day household items.
In fact, I've seen people shape their soaps using everything from PVC pipe to large sea shells.
If you're on a budget, and really don't want to fork over the money for a professional soap making mold, then this is definitely the way to go!