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HOW TO CUT SOAP
Your soap arrives to you in whole
loaves or entire blocks. It is best to unwrap the loaves and
cut them into bars as soon as they arrive. It is much easier
for the bars to cure when air can reach the entire surface of the
bar. That's rather hard to do when the bars are still
compacted together into one solid loaf.
So, the big questions is - how do I
cut soap loaves into bars?
There are many soap cutters out
there on the market. The problem is, most of them have to be
custom made to fit your particular soap loaf. Most are made
with a metal frame and wires stretched at intervals to make the
cuts. Some have even made their own cutters using the same
method, using guitar wire. For me, stretched wires make me
nervous. Ever seen the 1999 movie The Haunted with Liam
Neeson, Lili Taylor and Catherine Zeta-Jones? One of the
minor characters touches the string on a clavichord (medieval
stringed instrument) and the wire snaps and slashes her face.
Ouch. I can't think of soap cutters with wires without
seeing that scene in my head. Anyway, these professional
soap cutters can cost anywhere from $50 all the way up to $450.
Someone once said your hands are
the best tools you have. I found this to be true when it
comes to cutting soap into bars, using nothing more than a wooden
mitre box and a cutting blade.
For cutting the soap, I use a
pastry scraper which is easily found in any kitchen supply store.
The wooden handled ones seem to be the best ones to use because
they have a longer life and are less likely the bend. The
cheaper ones often warp over time with continuous slicing. Pastry
scrapers are usually used in the kitchen for picking up foods you
have chopped or for lifting fresh dough onto baking pans. They
range in price from $6 to $20. Be sure to buy the metal kind as
the plastic ones won't work for cutting soap. You can use a knife
but you have to find just the right size. If the knife is
too small it won't slice all the way through the soap, leaving you
to have to make a second cut at the bottom. If your knife is
too large or too thick, it pushes the soap down as you slice which
wastes soap and makes for a messy knife.
The wooden mitre box acts as your
guide. Trust me, even the steadiest of hands can cut some
really crooked soaps. The straight edge of the box ensures
straight cuts every time. The reason why I use a mitre box
made of wood is because I can saw into it. Hard plastic ones
are too hard to alter. With the wooden mitre box, you can
insert a saw into the straight cut and finish sawing the notch all
the way down to the base of the mitre box. If you don't take
this step, the blade won't cut all the way through your soap.
First you have to decide how wide you
want your bars of soap to be. Most people choose to cut their
soaps into a one inch thickness. At Aromagregory.com, we cut our soap
bars 1.25 inches thick, which gives us 10 bars from a loaf of
soap. When you decide your thickness, measure over from the
straight cut and make a mark on top of the mitre box to the right
of the guide. If you have several thicknesses of bars (such
as regular size, guest size, jumbo size) use three different
colors of pens to make your mark. It really helps in
remembering which cut is which. There's nothing more
frustrating than slicing up and entire loaf of soap - the wrong
size!
So, slide the soap loaf into the mitre box from the left and bring
the edge of the soap over to the mark you’ve made on the top of
the mitre box. Now, take your pastry scraper and start from the
back side and begin sliding the blade into the soap loaf in a
rocking down motion until the blade falls into the straight groove
closest to you. You have now cut your first bar of soap off of
your soap loaf. Keep going until you reach the end of the loaf.
Sometimes there will be small pieces left at the end of the loaf
which are great to keep for yourself.
So, how about how to cut a block of
soap into three loaves? More amazing technology is used
including a yard stick, a small knife and the pastry scraper.
Our soap blocks are nine inches across. Loaves are three
inches across. I take the end of the yard stick and rest it
against the edge of the soap block. Now, if your block is
slightly smaller (sometimes happens) nudge the yard stick a bit to
adjust the measurement all the way across the block. What I
do now is make a small slit into the block at 3 inches and another
one at 6 inches. Then, I do the same thing at the other end
of the block. This gives me a guide to then lay the yard
stick across the block in the other direction, resting against the
slits I've made. I then take the knife and run it along the
edge of the yard stick, making a small score all the way down the
length of the block. Do it again on your 6 inches marks.
Now, with clear lines on my block,
I take the pastry scraper and push it all the way down into the
soap on my score line. The scraper won't be long enough to
do this in one cut so I lift it out and continue down the block
until a loaf of soap is cut away. It's that simple. A
few inexpensive tools and a pair of sturdy hands with cut many
bars of soap. I've been cutting them this way for over a
decade.
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