I made a 4kg batch of Black Tea & Clay, my shaving soap for men. All went well until it was time to unmould. It would not budge. I tried everything to remove the perspex dividers. In the end, I had to get Steve, my husband to chip it all away. Because the soap has a high coconut percentage, it gets hard fairly quickly and this made it difficult to remove from the mould. He ended up breaking one of the dividers. I was annoyed that the mould wasn't what I expected and emailed the manufacturer. After a bit of back and forth, with photos, they finally agreed that it shouldn't have happened and sent me four new dividers for free.
I then made my Oatmeal, Milk & Honey in the mould. This one popped out easily! I think the fact that I put it in the freezer to prevent gelling made all the difference.
Gelling occurs when the soap goes through its chemical change. It heats up and turns opaque. I don't gel my OMH because the buttermilk causes the soap to overheat.
In the meantime, I'd contacted an Aussie soapmaker who makes and sells soap moulds. Nizzy is based in NSW and has a website: http://nizzymoulds.com. I told him my sad tale and he was absolutely brilliant, giving me a discount on the making of his special dividers to go into my wooden mould.
So then I made my Lavender & Green Tea, which doesn't go in the freezer, but is quite a soft soap due to it's high olive oil content. I left this in the mould for a while because of it's softness. Nizzy's dividers didn't quite fit and some of the soap leaked underneath, making it a bit difficult to remove the dividers, but nothing like the trouble I had previously.
I had mentioned on my favourite Soapmaking Forum about my issues and one of the Aussie girls offered to sell her Nizzy moulds to me. I took up the offer on one of them:
I hope to make my soap later today or perhaps tomorrow in this mould.
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