Aged Soap: The Quiet Work of Time
At Chagrin Valley, every bar of natural soap is already something special, lovingly crafted, naturally rich in skin-nourishing glycerin, and cured for 8–12 weeks to reach its perfect balance of hardness, creaminess, and mildness. That’s the bar you know and love.
But a few times a year, we tuck away certain batches and let them rest even longer, sometimes a full year or more. With time, something subtle and magical happens: the lather turns silkier, the texture smoother, and the feel on your skin even more luxurious. These are not “better” than our regular bars, just a rare expression of what patience and nature can create together.
Before we dive into why aged soap is such a treat, let’s take a quick trip into the science of soapmaking.
Saponification vs. Curing: They Are Not the Same
Saponification
Saponification is the chemical reaction that transforms fats (acids) and sodium hydroxide (a base) into a salt we know as soap.
This transformation happens quickly. Within 48 hours, the process is 96–99% complete. At that point, the soap is technically safe to touch and could be used. However, the quality of this young soap will be quite disappointing. It may feel harsh on the skin, produce minimal lather, be very soft, and have a shorter lifespan.
That’s why the process of curing is so important.
The Art of Curing
The curing time for each recipe of cold-process soap is different. While some believe curing is just a time for water evaporation, it is a complex maturation process.
During curing, the last of the saponification reaction quietly wraps up. Water slowly evaporates, concentrating the naturally occurring glycerin, which makes the lather milder and gentler, especially for sensitive skin. The bar also hardens, creating a creamier lather and a longer-lasting soap.
While many soapmakers cure soap bars for 4–5 weeks, we have never been satisfied with that. At Chagrin Valley, our soaps cure for 8 to 12 weeks, depending on the formula. This slower approach yields a milder, longer-lasting bar with a luxurious lather worth the wait.
📘 Learn More Blog: How Do Natural Soap Bars Create Lather?
What Makes Our Specially Aged Soap Different
At its core, a bar of soap is a salt with a stable structure — a crystalline solid composed of a mixture of fatty acid salts, glycerin, and water. As it cures, the fatty acid salts rearrange into a more tightly packed crystalline structure. This change improves hardness, lather, and mildness.
We cannot see this crystalline shift with the naked eye, so opinions vary on how long the whole process takes to complete.
But after 25 years of soapmaking, we have learned that many bars continue to improve long after the standard cure time.
Even after most of the water has evaporated, something subtle and wonderful continues:
- The texture becomes silkier
- The lather grows richer and creamier
- The bar feels even gentler on the skin
As soap continues to rest, it loses more weight due to water loss. Although the absolute amount of glycerin in a bar of soap remains the same, the percentage of glycerin increases.
This is because the glycerin does not evaporate alongside the water, making it a larger proportion of the remaining soap mass. We believe this may help explain why aged soap feels so incredibly mild (though more research is still needed).
Why We Are Sharing Them With You
Extended aging is a quiet transformation that coaxes out subtle changes in texture, lather, and feel.
We love aged natural soap so much that we have always set aside a few bars from each batch just for ourselves, letting them cure for 12 to 24 months.
Over that time, they shrink a bit more and their colors and scents soften and fade, but what remains is a soap that feels like a small luxury in the palm of your hand. A natural soap bar enriched by time, with unmatched silkiness, creaminess, and gentleness.
Our regular 8 to 12-week cured soaps are expertly crafted to deliver outstanding quality, gentle care, and rich lather. The aged soaps offer a different, delicate nuance, a celebration of time’s subtle magic, but both are made with the same commitment to purity, skin health, and sustainability that defines every bar we create.
Now, for the first time, we are sharing these aged treasures with you. They require patience and time to create, but the moment you lather up, you will understand why we love them.
Want to see how it all comes together?
Check out our blog: How We Make Natural Soap At Chagrin Valley
