Question

In preparing soap you dissolved 12.5 grams of sodium hydroxide in 32 ML of de-ionized water. The product was a solid cake of soap. What happened to the water you added when preparing your soap?

Answer 1

this question seems flawed. soap requires fats as well as NaOH to create the desired molecule. ASsuming that your product produced was from a complete reaction, i will say the water was evaporated off removing soap particles from the solution phase

Answer 2

I would agree with @GregTheo , you don't have all the reactants. And there's two things I would say are likely: evaporation and water of hydration/crystallization
(although soap isn't a crystal, it does absorb some water, due to it's partly-hydrophilic nature)

Answer 3

agreed, i neglected water infused in the solid state.