I was reading some fabulous soaping blogs the other evening and I came across one that made me chuckle out loud. Jean of Soap Art decided to order our Premium Soap Base in bulk, which comes in a 25 pound box. These are pretty big boxes and can be quite intimidating if you have never ordered one before. Luckily, Jean did a fantastic job writing a funny and engaging tutorial on how to cut down one of those 25 lb. soap blocks. Thanks for letting us repost, Jean! -Anne-Marie
This is the Soap Monster.
I have wanted to order a Soap Monster from Bramble Berry for quite some time, but I was afraid of it. Recently I called myself a little chicken, decided to get over it, and took the plunge and the ordered glycerin soap base from Bramble Berry in the 25 pound boxes. Yes, boxes, plural.
I love Bramble Berry’s bases because I feel that they are as close to natural as I’m going to get in a pre-made glycerin base at an affordable price. This is their premium clear base that I have been using since I started making soap. I dubbed it the Soap Monster because cutting up a 25 pound block of glycerin soap base seemed intimidating. Even after reading the Soap Queen Tutorial on Cutting Blocks of Soap, I was intimidated.
Let me tell you about my first experience with cutting these monster blocks of soap down to size.
First I want to say thank you to my Dad and my Girl Scout leaders for some great training on knife safety and proper handling of knives. This information was invaluable as I tackled the soap blocks. If you ever do this, make sure you know and follow proper knife safety.
Here’s the box the soap came in. It’s about 13 x 10 x 5 inches. The soap was poured directly into a plastic bag inside the box.
Some of the plastic was into the soap a ways, but I was able to pull it out just fine. If you look closely, you can see little “bag tracks” where I pulled the bag away from the soap.
I started by cutting off a strip of soap about 1” wide from the side of the block. Glycerin soap base is interesting to work with, it is sticky and slippery all at once. It requires a good deal of caution and a bit of elbow grease.
The one inch slice you see above had some bubbles that needed to be shaved off.
I used a cheese slicer/planer to do that job.
It worked great, and I didn’t lose valuable soap base. Had I used a knife, I think I would have ended up with more waste.
See the radio in the background? That made the time spent on this much more enjoyable. I’ll spare you the audio of me singing along with the radio.
Here is the progress – this is about 2 pounds out of the 25.
Almost halfway finished!
It turns out the Soap Monster isn’t really a monster after all. Cutting up the block wasn’t difficult; it just took a little time, I had no reason to be intimidated. So if you’re considering buying lots of glycerin soap base, this is definitely a great way to go.
I’m happy with what I got done this time around and I will save the rest for another day.
Do you have any tips and tricks on cutting the “Soap Monster”? Share with us in the comments below!
