My wooden soap mould is really awesome, and I get a fair amount of questions about it, so I thought I’d do an entry on it for anybody who’d like to re-create it. My dad made this for me a couple years ago, and it’s awesome.
There are a few things that are particularly awesome about this soap mould. First off, it’s exactly the the right size to be easily lined with parchment paper, being just as long as a standard roll is wide. Brilliant.
Up next; each inch of the mould holds a 100g of oils portion of soap. Yes, I realize this is really mixing my measurement units, but this is Canada, and we have commitment issues in that department. That’s 1″=3.3oz oil or 2.54cm=100g oil, for those who prefer not to bounce between the systems. That means that, at 38.1cm/15″ long, this mould can hold a 1500g/52.9oz (of oils) batch of soap. That batch ends up weighing more than 1500g once you add in water, lye, and essential oils, but it sure is handy. If my batch is based around 700g/24.6oz of oils, I’ll measure out 7″/17.7cm of the mould, slide in a partition, and the batch will fit perfectly.
The ends are attached with screws, which I remove/fasten with a screwdriver. The partitions just slide in and out, though a bit tighter now than when the mould was new as the wood has swollen thanks to its relatively frequent contact with moisture.
I’ve started using elastic bands to hold down the edges of the parchment as it’s so non-stick that tape doesn’t work. I remove the elastics after pouring the soap so I can put the lid on it.
I line the main trough of the mould with parchment, but not the ends or the partitions. This way I am able to unscrew the ends and then basically lift out a log of soap with the ends still attached. I’ll cut those off with a knife (ditto to the partitions, if used), and then be on my merry way to slice & age the soap.
The mould also has a lid, which is fantastic for covering the batch while it saponifies.
The inner measurements of my mold are 15″ long, 3.5″ across, and 3.5″ deep (or 38.1 cm long, 8.89 cm across, and 8.89 cm deep). I have a series of dividers that support the lid; they are 2.75″ (7cm) high, giving the mold an effective depth of 2.75″ (the lid is 0.75″ [1.9 cm] thick).
The wood used is a smooth plywood, unfinished, 0.75″ [1.9 cm] thick. The three main pieces that form the length of the mould are held together with screws. All you’ll really need is a saw and a screwdriver! Fantastic.
Well, that’s about it. Feel free to ask about any details I may have neglected 🙂 And no… you can’t buy one from me, though I have told my dad there’s a good business opportunity here 😉
I noticed you don’t worry about lining the ends. Do you have any problems with the soap sticking on the sides or to the dividers?
I’ve found that I use the end pieces as handles, basically. The ends unscrew from the body of the mould, so I remove the screws, and then grab the end pieces and the parchment to slide out the soap. I then use a sharp chef’s knife to smoothly sever the soap block from the wood. It works like a charm 🙂
I love your post!
Especial this one! Thanks for sharing your wooden mold ^^ is great!
I did my with glue together 3 major piece with leave the ends open – only use elastic to hold them up when making soap, so same time this mold can use it for cutting ^^
I line the ends with small piece “liner” use milk carton, it works great! but I like your size, because I feel mine is bit too small only able to hold about 700g oil…
Thanks, Flowery!
I love that kind of molds! Doesn’t soap stick to the ends of the mold badly? Or “run” under that parchment paper, when you don’t cover mold ends with it? I’ve been looking for that freezer paper americans seem to use, but we don’t have it here in Finland.
If you can get butcher paper, that’s pretty much the same, it’s just a little thicker. Freezer paper is sold in small rolls here like plastic wrap. The butcher paper usually comes in industrial sized rolls. It is quite nice to use, the treated side (a waterproof, plasticized spray coating) releases from the soap very nicely.
Thanks, Carmen! Need to check if we have any butcher’s paper here. 🙂
Good luck on your hunt 🙂
Thanks, Carmen! Great tip 🙂
I’ve found that I use the end pieces as handles, basically. The ends unscrew from the body of the mould, so I remove the screws, and then grab the end pieces and the parchment to slide out the soap. I then use a sharp chef’s knife to smoothly sever the soap block from the wood. It works like a charm 🙂
As for running under the parchment—it happens occasionally, but not very often, and usually not too badly. It’s more likely with a very thin trace. The weight of the soap usually holds the paper down, so as long as I ensure the paper is spread flat it is usually pinned to the bottom of the mould and there’s no chance for run-under.
Cool to see how others do it. I have 2 molds. I was sick of dealing with parchment to we experimented. One is made with an old melamine table top. The soap pops right out. The second has a melamine bottom and the sides are raw wood which I oiled. That took a few batches of fighting with the wood it it is now “broken in” and just fine. Just another idea! Love the site! I’m in Winnipeg so defititely appreciate the climate-congruent nature of some of your points!
Hi Maggie! I LOVE the melamine table top idea—brilliant! I will have to keep my eye out for an old table top that is on its way to the dump 🙂
Since you’re from Winnipeg you’ll probably find this entry kind of fun 🙂 Thanks for reading!
This sounds pretty damn awesome! My dad is a woodworker so I’m thinking i’ll get him to work on this for me >:)
Perhaps some hinges on the ends and some sort of lock instead of using screws? Hmm, maybe I could even get some silicone sheets and have those glued to the sides of the box? Would that assist in unmoulding? OHH, perhaps I could put hinges all over it so it all just folds down! Maybe..
*sigh*
Nice! Handy dads are awesome, eh? The silicone idea is awesome, but I would be worried about the seal with hinges. I’ve experience leakage from the ends when I don’t secure the screws tightly enough.
Love your blog!
This is in response to Fatima’s comment. I made my own molds too, using hinges on the long sides, and 2- 10″ bolts on each end. The short ends are just loose, like Marie’s. I glued and stapled silicone oven liner on the inside, thinking the soap would just slide out. With a lot of frustration, pulling, peeling and cussing you could get the soap out because of the hinges. After just a few batches the silicone liner started peeing off and wrinkling. I had to go back to lining with freezer paper (I’m in the states), which is 18″ long, so by folding kind of like a present, you can cover the ends. Reynolds makes the freezer paper I use. Do they carry Reynolds in Canada? The same company that makes plastic wrap and aluminum foil.
I love my molds, but the cost of the hinges and bolts starts adding up. I used solid wood for my molds because I was oven processing sometimes. Plywood is usually glued together and I was concerned about the off gassing of formaldehyde and the de-laminating of the layers in the oven. I pretty much just CP now, so plywood would make it much more economical – imagine how many molds you could make from 1 sheet of plywood! (insert maniacal laugh)
Question for Marie. Are the screws in the end pieces, that you remove each time, just screwed directly into the wood? or do they screw into a metal piece that is embedded into the wood? (I’m sure it has a name, but I don’t know what it is.) The wood isn’t stripping out and causing the screws to be loose?
Oohh! I just thought of something. You could have different end pieces with a line routed say in the middle that fits a piece of Plexiglas (do you have that in Canada?) in order to do Mantra swirls,etc.
Hi Aimee! Thanks so much for all your awesome insights 🙂 And yes, we have both Reynolds and Plexiglas in Canada 😛 No Peter Pan peanut butter, though. Anyhow, I don’t have any anchors for the screws in my mould, and after about 3 years one of the ends has started to strip out, so I added two more screws to that end to tighten things up. If I was making lots and soap to sell and using the mould all the time I’d probably switch to hinges and clamps for the ends to avoid that, as I’m not sure how well the anchors would work in the relatively thin plywood. Hmmm. I’ve asked my dad to make me another (or two)—I’ll run some of these extra ideas past him when the time comes 🙂
I just came back from value village with a wooden box to use as a soap mould, and I’m so ecstatic that it turns out it has the exact inner dimensions of your soap mould! So now I can simply measure out an inch for each 100g of oils! Woo hoo my soaping just got sooo much easier.
Do you find you need to insulate your mould even with the wooden cover? I’m worried about it over-heating and I don’t want a soap volcano on my hands! FYI average room temperature in my house is around 22-23 Celsius.
Can’t wait to use it 🙂 I’ll have to dream up a soap for next week.
Thanks!
What fantastic luck, Laura! I don’t insulate my mould much—I just fold up a sheet and wrap it in that. I do also leave it in my basement to saponify, though, and it’s really quite chilly down there (maybe 17°C?), so I don’t think of it as insulating so much as simulating something close to room temperature. I would recommend kicking off with a recipe that doesn’t use any sugars to get a feel for how this mould works for you 🙂
Thanks Marie – that’s a great hint. I’ll leave out the coconut milk I was planning and try my hand at an in the pot swirl 🙂
🙂 Can’t wait to hear how it goes!
I recently found your blog via hairpins, and now I find I
am awaiting a delivery to start a batch of shampoo bars! I didn’t plan to get into soap, but here I am thanks to your fabulous info and tutorials.
What size do you cut your soap to yield? I love your pictures with the top/textured part of the bar on a short end. But I can’t figure out how that works given your dimensions here. Do you cut your soap log perpendicular to the short sides and the long sides ( so that your bars are 50g rather than 100g)?
Thanks! I’m sure I will be back with more questions as my projects get started!
Hi Heather! I slice my bars both crosswise and lengthwise, so each cross slice gives me two bars. The bars end up being about 2.75″ tall and 1.75″ wide, with slightly varying thickness depending on how good my eyeballing is that day, but generally around 0.75″. Enjoy your soaping, you’ll be totally hooked in no time 😉
Hi Marie,
Thanks for all your hard work for this website!
Can I have the dimensions of the sides and bottom of this box so I can make one?
Thanks!
j
Oh I found it, nevermind!
🙂
The inner measurements of my mold are 15″ long, 3.5″ across, and 3.5″ deep (or 38.1 cm long, 8.89 cm across, and 8.89 cm deep). I have a series of dividers that support the lid; they are 2.75″ (7cm) high, giving the mold an effective depth of 2.75″ (the lid is 0.75″ [1.9 cm] thick).
Hey Marie! I have been coveting this soap mold for a long time now and finally, I am getting one for Christmas! – my boys are making it for me 🙂 My question about it is – when you fill the entire mold with a big batch of soap, without using the dividers (which you mention hold the lid up), does the lid then lay directly on top of the soap batter? Thanks! Have a wonderful Christmas 🙂
Hi Colleen! In theory, yes, the lid would fall in… but it doesn’t because the wood in mine has swollen enough that it doesn’t sit down into the mould anymore 😛 You might consider asking your carpenter to make the lid a tad wider or longer so you can get that effect from the get-go 😉
Hey, just wondering if it would be dangerous in any way to line the ends with vinyl?
My only potential concern would be the soap eating away at the vinyl. Perhaps try placing a dollop of raw soap on a sheet of vinyl to saponify and see how that goes first?
I recently signed up to your blog after finding it online. Love the site! As to finding melamine countertop materials, many home stores and kitchen installers have the sink cutouts from new installs that they give away, or sell for cheap. Something I have already used for my current mould, and will again in the future for my next set of moulds.
Welcome, Randall! And thanks so much for the melamine tip, that’s awesome 🙂
Love your blog and newsletter! Please add a print button to your web pages. I print mostly to PDF but occasionally need a paper and ink sheet to follow along as I go. THANK YOU! ~Dana
Hi Dana! I’ve yet to find a strip-out-the-excess plug in that I like. If you can recommend one I’m all ears 🙂
My husband made me a jigsaw mold that is awesome, no screws. Line with parchment and then put a piece of parchment then lid. Lid doesn’t sink.
Awesome! I’d love to see photos 🙂
Do you really line with Parchment Paper? I read “elsewhere” that Parchment (and wax paper) reacts with Soap and you have to peel it off. That “site” recommend Freezer Paper only. I have a source with ample Parchment paper, but no where for Freezer Paper. Hope Parchment works fine. Appreciate your verification, I trust your site. Thanks!
Hey Coreen! Yes, I use parchment paper with every single batch of soap I make in this mould 🙂 I can see why wax paper wouldn’t be a good idea as the wax would probably melt to the soap, and I do know of many people who have assumed wax and parchment paper are the same thing if they’ve never worked with both, so perhaps that’s where that advice came from? (I have a friend who baked cookies on wax paper because her mother insisted it was the same thing as parchment—NOPE! She ended up with cookies with wax paper fused to them haha.) Happy soaping!
Hello Marie, hope this finds you well!! I was wondering, the mould, since it holds 100g of oil per inch. And if I decided to make a full batch, which would be 1500g of oils, would that overflow the mould once I added in my lye water and additives?…know what I’m asking? Or does your volume calculations take in account for the volume change? I’m always confused about this lol. So I guesstimate with my own recipes and my moulds. But I much prefer wood moulds over silicone and really want to make yours!.
Hey Kara! That 100g is 100g + lye water, etc 🙂
You really are awesome!!! Thanks for getting back so quick!
Happy making!
Can I just say that I LOVE THIS MOULD!!!!
It’s been made, it works just as you said it would, I love that I can easily make teeny tiny batches of soap and I know exactly where to jam the divider in. I love that I can make huge batches if I choose, and that I can make two or even three batches…at once!! haha. As you can see it’s like xmas here at my house. Kid in a candy store here! Thank you for sharing your wonderful mould with us.
Yay! I’m so glad you’re loving it 😀 My dad is pretty awesome 😉
Hi. Is there a benefit to using a wooden mold over silicone?
Wooden moulds will insulate better, and they’re stiff, so easier to move on their own, but both are great, and silicone is easier to clean 🙂
Hi Marie
I was wondering if you could give exterior rather than interior dimensions for the individual pieces of wood please? I hope to have a go making one. Thanks.
They’re irrelevant, honestly—depending on the wood you use, they’ll change. The interior dimensions is what matters!
Hi!
I haven’t tried soap making yet… but I’ve been devouring many articles on your website and I’m feeling a compulsive DIY bout coming in :-P!
Funny how I recognize myself in a lot of the things you say (wanting to do to many things -and running out of space to store the stuff that comes with it all-etc.) Also: reading your articles will save me soooo much trial and error!! Thanks for sharing your experience :)!
Here’s my question now: As a practical point of view, I’m wondering what to do with a pound of soap (your minimal recomendation for final soap size)… Does it have a long shelf life? What do you do with the remaining of the batch? I’m asking, because I can VERY easily see myself wanting to try each of your beautiful soap recipes… Also, can you fill your mould half way, or do you use a smaller mould for smaller batches? Thanks ;)!
A pound of soap is ~8 biggish bars, and the shelf life is pretty darn long! I have bars on my shelves that are four years old that are still fine—most of the EOs have evaporated off by now, but the bars have aged wonderfully and will last for ages once they get wet and start being used due to that looooong aging time. Soap also makes an awesome gift—I now give soap instead of bottles of wine for housewarmings and what not haha.
For smaller batches, use the dividers:
“Up next; each inch of the mould holds a 100g of oils portion of soap. Yes, I realize this is really mixing my measurement units, but this is Canada, and we have commitment issues in that department. That’s 1″=3.3oz oil or 2.54cm=100g oil, for those who prefer not to bounce between the systems. That means that, at 38.1cm/15″ long, this mould can hold a 1500g/52.9oz (of oils) batch of soap. That batch ends up weighing more than 1500g once you add in water, lye, and essential oils, but it sure is handy. If my batch is based around 700g/24.6oz of oils, I’ll measure out 7″/17.7cm of the mould, slide in a partition, and the batch will fit perfectly.”
Thanks :)! Good to know about the shelf life, and great tip ;)!
I’m Canadian too, so I keep bouncing back from metric to imperial, héhé!
Good to know you understand my half-arsed use of two different systems
Marie, after you cut the soap to let it age, where do you put it and how do you keep it when it’s ageing? Thanks
I just put it on a shelf in my basement lined with some parchment paper or wax paper and ignore it 😛 That’s where it lives until it gets used!
How thick should the ply be at minimum? Also, do the sides join the base or the ends?
I’m afraid I didn’t make it so all I can offer you is the photos in the post.