Our sincere thanks to Sharon of Platypus Dreams Australia for this incredibly explanatory and economic method making and lining soap moulds.  We are very grateful Sharon, thank you.

I noticed some are asking about moulds. Here is what I do. Make a wood box with some ply about 12mm thick, thinner and I don't get the right amount of insulation heat wise. Yours may be different over there due to the cold weather so make it out of thicker ply. I don't have drop down sides or nothing on it, basically it's a box. Get the pieces precision cut at a lumbar or timber place, take the pieces home and nail or screw them together.

I line it with laminating film that has been ran through the laminator, I collect or pay for the offcuts from a laminating place and get about 2-3ft lengths and they are about 2.5ft wide, but for a small mould an A3 size pocket ran through a laminator without paper in the middle would suffice.

What I do is then measure the base of the bottom of the inside of the box and draw the box on my piece of film and then the sides, like it's all laid out flat and the sides of the box have flipped down.  Then I cut out the corners of the film so I am left with a big cross.  I then score, with something blunt, the lines where the sides of the film are to fold up (fold the creases in them) and then trim off any excess and pop it in the box.

If you are accurate with cutting the film then it won't leak much, if not it will (ycan also grease the wood with some vaseline).  To get the soap out of the box I bang the side of the box upside down on a bench and out comes the soap. The box has to be made perfectly square and has to be higher than the soap.  I don't worry about lids and the likes, just cover the soap with an old towel or towels.

Also if it attaches is a pic of some teflon bakers sheets that they use in commercial baking, these are not cheap but don't need washing if you gently remove any excess soap. The first couple of times they leave a slight brown discoloration to the soap which can be scraped off, with use they don't leave any color on the soap but with lots of regular use they do become quite brittle and can be repaired with clear packaging tape on the non soap side.

I have other moulds which are the likes of those thick plastic cutting board type from For Craft Sake in the US, it is good 150 bars in a hit but I hate the cleaning up the mould bit/pulling it apart and reassembling. It's time consuming. With the wood ones any excess soap that is left in the mould can be scraped up with a stainless steel plaster spatula thingie.

Oh if you can't get hold of laminate, that thick black builders plastic will work as well but it gets out of shape easily due to the heat of the soap and you end up with wrinkles in the bottom of the soap. Some use garbage bags but it's not a very good look on the outside of the bars IMO.

I hope this is of help to some as buying moulds is not a cheap exercise.

Cheers Sharon