Have you ever experienced keeping your precious handmade soap somewhere, and then when you picked it up, it feels damp?You look at it and it looks like it's sweating! It has droplets on it, and you wonder - what is going on? Why is my soap sweating?
In this post we answer this question on why your handmade soap looks like its sweating.
Why does handmade soap sweat?
TLDR: Glycerine + Humidity = Sweating Soap
Glycerine
Glycerine loves water. L O V E S. Loves it, crazy about the stuff.
As mentioned here, and here, glycerine is great for skin because it loves water. That is exactly why it helps keep our skin soft and moisturised and hydrated.
Glycerine is in our natural handmade soap as a natural byproduct. And because it is a big part of our handmade soap, it makes our handmade soap love water too!
Thus, when the humidity gets really high, our handmade soap will start drawing the water out of the air into itself, or onto itself. So when the water from the air gets drawn to the soap, it forms beads of moisture on its surface, and thus this “sweat” is not actually from the soap itself, but from the surrounding humid air.
Other Ingredients in Handmade Soap
Honey Oat Natural Handmade Soap
Another factor that can make a handmade soap more "sweaty" than normal are ingredients that also love water. One of them that causes sweating to occur more than usual is honey.
Honey is also a natural water-loving humectant, and thus like glycerine, will also draw water from the air onto itself when it is in our handmade soaps.
Humidity
Being located in our humid climate, this is something that has a tendency to occur when you use handmade soaps.
Did you know, the average humidity in our part of the world is over 70%? When it rains, it goes up even higher even though we feel cool.
That is why, there is a tendency to find your handmade soaps sweating more than usual on a rainy day or during the rainy season.
What should you do?
One trick to help reduce this from happening is to keep your handmade soaps in a cool, dry place, away from direct sunlight.
If you find that it still sweats, do consider getting a simple dehumidifier/moisture absorber to be put in the cupboard or shelf together with your soaps.
Our soaps are all stored in a covered area with both a dehumidifier (moisture absorber) and also a small electric dehumidifier to control the humidity and prevent our soaps from sweating before they reach you.
However, on the journey to you, they may sweat due to the natural glycerine performing its job and drawing water from the air.
This is natural process and is not the soap actually sweating or melting, so don’t worry, your soap is still good!
If you do find the soaps sweaty or damp, maybe even a little bit soft if you have hand them in a humid place for a while, just let them dry and they will harden up again in no time!
