There are two main ways of making soap - the cold process and the hot process. In the cold process, it's the heat generated from the lye reacting with the water that melts the fat and - depending on the fat and amount of lye - you don't have to stir it for very long until it traces and can be put in the moulds. However, it isn't ready to be used yet and has to be curated for four weeks until all lye has been used up soapifying the fats and the soap is optimal to be used. In the hot process, in contrast, you do the stirring in a double boiler and keep going for a hour or two so that the soapification process has completed and the soaps can be used as soon as they have cold down.
Over the last few years, I've done both - most often the hot process when I've run out of schampoo soap bars and need new ones fast and the cold process when I've been more foreseeing and planned a head. You see, with the cold process, it's easier to get great soaps that are well worth the wait while curating. With the hot process, on the other hand, my soaps tends to flake and fall apart - especially if I haven't filled the moulds up enough directly and add a little more soap batter - that extra addition willl run a great risk of never really joining with the first dollop and eventually break away when using the soap bar...
What if there was a middle way? Turns out there is! The Cold Process Owen Process!
You simply use the cold process as usual, to get the well behaved batter that is easy to portion out in the molds and will allow you to add more to the moulds when you divide the last soap batter between them - and then you preheat your owen to 75 degrees Celsius, bake the soaps in it for an hour, then turn of the heat and let the soaps bake in the afterheat over night. During the time in the owen, the soaps will gel beautifully from the edges in. Alledgedly, they still need two weeks of curing to be perfect but the important part is that you can use them directly the next morning - I tested mine by licking at them and they only tasted like soap (yuck!) but didn't zap my tounge like a electric battery like uncurated cold process soaps with unprocessed lye does.
So, in other words, with the Cold Process Owen Process, you can get really nice quality soaps that can be used directly without having to plan four weeks ahead. Pretty neat!
