Conditioner Lab

Also worth doing a zap test rather than judging by feel. Touch the bar to your tongue briefly: a sharp battery-like sting means there's still free lye and it needs more time or has a real problem. No zap means it's safe soap and what you're feeling is just cure and recipe.

One thing to check: are you washing them inside a mesh bag or loose in the sink? Loose in a sink with agitation is closer to machine washing than people think. Also skip fabric softener entirely on wool, it coats the fibre and makes surface fuzz worse.

Just looked and the supplier note says 'may accelerate'. I bought it purely on the scent description.

Cut at 36 hours and it's fine - a bit crumbly at the edges but solid bars. The air pockets are visible but I can live with it.

Worth checking their crops in the evening too. A bird who is getting chased off the feeder all day will have an empty crop at roost time while the others feel like golf balls. It is the quickest way to tell whether the bullying is actually costing her food or just looking dramatic.

Whichever way you go, budget £15 for a decent clothes brush and use it. Wool coats look tired mostly from surface fuzz and dust, not wear.

That's soda ash and it's cosmetic. It forms when unsaponified lye at the surface reacts with carbon dioxide in the air, producing sodium carbonate. It doesn't affect how the bar performs, it isn't dangerous, and it stops appearing once the surface has fully cured.

The reason it's on the top face and patchy is that the top is exposed to air while it's still soft. Prevention for next time:

• spray the top of the mould with high proof isopropyl alcohol right after pouring, and again 10 minutes later
• cover the mould with cling film pressed lightly onto the surface, or with a lid
• insulate to encourage a full gel phase, which reduces ash noticeably

To remove it from bars you already have, a quick pass under running water with a cloth, or a steam from a kettle held at a distance, takes it off permanently once the bar is cured.

Lye pockets look and feel quite different - wet, sometimes slimy, and they'll zap on a tongue test. A dry powder that brushes off is ash every time.

The waxy feel points at the shea. 20% is on the high side - shea and other soft butters give a lovely bar but they contribute to a softer, waxier feel and slow the cure. I'd drop it to 10-12% and see if you prefer it.

Buy the silicone one with a wooden or acrylic sleeve if you can find it slightly over your budget. A bare silicone loaf bulges at the sides when you pour and your bars end up with curved faces that don't stack. The sleeve is the difference between a nice loaf and a slightly wonky one.