Testing a new CP soap recipe

I've been making my own CP (cold process) soap recipes for a while now. I've also tried some recipes I've found online. Most of them have come out great, but lately I've had a few disappointments. It's extra disappointing because you make your soap, then have to wait 8 weeks to see how it came out. So if it's no good, that's a pretty big waste of time.

Yesterday I wrote two recipes. A Triple Butter soap and a Shea Butter soap with a high percentage of shea butter. I was a little nervous about the high percentage of shea affecting the lather, and didn't want to wait 6-8 weeks to see, so I decided to make a half pound hot process batch for each recipe. When you do HP (hot process) the soap is ready to use right away because you essentially cook out the lye. Although a 1-2 week curing time is best. The look of HP soap is a little different from CP, and you can't do as many swirls and designs as you can with CP, but it does have it's benefits. The main one being the short cure time.

When testing out a new recipe, using the HP method can save a lot of time. If it comes out the way you hope, you can leave it, or switch to CP.  Those of you who make handmade soap may want to try this as well. I went natural for both recipes, no color and no fragrance, just naked soap. This way you get to see how the soap is on its own, and you get an idea of how fast it moves and how much color you may need for future batches.

Here is a picture showing the difference between CP & HP. The darker soap is CP. HP thickens the soap during the cook, so you really don't get a smooth pour when molding it. It usually has to be spooned into the mold, hence the chunky looking top.