Salted out "Aleppo" Soap

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engblom

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Yesterday I made salted out "Aleppo" soap with 20% Laurel Berry oil.

I begun like with CP. I poured at trace into silicone molds and let it set for some time. Then I put it into oven and forced gelling.

That soap I dissolved into a lot of water. It looked like a slightly green juice more than soap. After that I saturated with salt so the soap would rise. This I spooned into a strainer. The remaining brine had a bit of brown color. Again I dissolved the soap and salted out. This time the brine was clear.

After the crud has been in a strainer for some time stabilizing I spooned it over to a textile bag and into the laundry machine it went for centrifuge.

After the centrifuge, the soap mass was dry enough to form into soaps. This I did with a PVC pipe and two wood pieces. I pressed one at the time.

Here is the result! So much work for 4 pieces of soap, but nice soap it is! The hands are so soft after!

20140210_135336.jpg
 
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few questions to help me understand this better . did you rehash a bar of soap or you made it from scratch? the original soap contained the 20% laurel berry oil or you used raw laurel berry oil ?
 
I first made from scratch a 80% EVOO, 20% Laurel Berry Oil soap superfatted at 7%. Technically, I would not have needed to superfat as any excess lye would have been washed away later.

At trace I poured everything into silicone cavity molds. Once they had been gelling, I put 4 of the soaps into boiling hot water and by spoon mashed (they were still soft) them until I just had a very loose fluid looking like tea. This took quite some time. I used 1.5 litre of water to those 4 soaps (besides the 38% water the soaps already contained).

Once earlier I made a fully boiled soap by having excess fluids from the very beginning. I will never do that again as that took a lot of stiring and time to do. This is why I decided to first do CPOP and then later disolve it into more water to get the excess fluid.
 
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very very interesting ! i never heard of this before . isn't the laurel berry oil expensive in your country [ i take it that you are not in the U.S ] . at the end of your process do you end up with a soap that has a very mild ( low ) ph ?
 
Lion Of Judah said:
very very interesting ! i never heard of this before . isn't the laurel berry oil expensive in your country [ i take it that you are not in the U.S ] . at the end of your process do you end up with a soap that has a very mild ( low ) ph ?
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I bought the Laurel Berry oil for about 30EUR/kg and shipping was 9 EUR. There are different suppliers with different price. Yes, it is more expensive than the typical olive oil, but on the other hand you do not make a 100% Laurel Berry Oil soap either. If even 5% of what is said about Aleppo soap on wikipedia is true, it is well worth. Regardless of if it is true or not, I like the smell and how the soap feels.

Any excess of lye (by mistake or not) gets washed away together with the glycerin and other impurities when you salt out. Some salt (which binds moisture) will remain in the new soap making it really nice on the skin. It is a bit less lather because of the salt, but the lather is very soft and a bit creamy. After washing, the skin feels more soft than from any other soap I have been trying.
 
Wow pretty soaps. I've heard that the green color fades, which is a real pity. Maybe your method with the salt will make it last.

I'm quite new to soap making, and I dont understand why you dissolved your soap in salt water after it was made? Was that to get rid of the impurities that washed out in the brine?

Theres a post here recently about someone "washing" out fats with salted water, and someone else washed out their soaps made with old cooking out with salt water. Now Im all confused.
 
I have also salted out soap and it does make a very nice gentle soap, but as mentioned it is a lot of work. Have to admit I never thought about the washing machine trick. Will have to try that next!
 
Seawolfe said:
Wow pretty soaps. I've heard that the green color fades, which is a real pity. Maybe your method with the salt will make it last.

I'm quite new to soap making, and I dont understand why you dissolved your soap in salt water after it was made? Was that to get rid of the impurities that washed out in the brine?

Theres a post here recently about someone "washing" out fats with salted water, and someone else washed out their soaps made with old cooking out with salt water. Now Im all confused.
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i also want to know why, pretty please..
 
Every single soap I have been salting out has been milder than the original soap. That is the only single reason for salting out for me. I would not want to do all that extra work unless I had this single reason.
 
Very interesting topic, I am very interested in aleppo soap and in the salting process, I understand it , but want to learn more how i can apply it to making soap. If i can remover certain impurities by salting maybe i can do this with some other oils, sure would be interested to try it out with neem oil.
If you superfat you said salting would make the soap rise to the top of the water, but what about the not so soap, will it still rise?
 
The soap will rise regardless if it is super-fatted or not. Usually you even have excess of lye, which you wash away. Salting out allows you to make soap out of unknown oils. For example rendered oils from big kitchens.

With normal CP you should never have excess of lye as the lye would remain in the soap. This requires knowledge about the fats and their SAP-values.
 
So salting out can fulfill several objectives, but for you the advantage is the milder soap at the end?
I think that using your washing machine as a centrifuge is very clever, I'd love to see a tutorial of this with pictures.
 
Salting out soap removes all the glycerin along with any excess lye. I tried it with a few bars and the resulting soap was extremely harsh and I ended up having to throw it out.
I would suggest trying just a bar or two until you know if you'll like the finished product.
 
Seawolfe said:
So salting out can fulfill several objectives, but for you the advantage is the milder soap at the end?
I think that using your washing machine as a centrifuge is very clever, I'd love to see a tutorial of this with pictures.
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Yep! So far I have been using soapcalc and known oils so the only advantage for me has been milder soap.

But even with known oils, it could be nice if you want to use oils that could go rancid. By having excess of lye you get all oil to react so nothing should be left. Then you wash away that excess.
 
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Obsidian said:
Salting out soap removes all the glycerin along with any excess lye. I tried it with a few bars and the resulting soap was extremely harsh and I ended up having to throw it out.
I would suggest trying just a bar or two until you know if you'll like the finished product.
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That was my thoughts entirely. In the homesteading days they used to salt the soap to get it rise but it was because in essence they were making KOH by running water through wood ash rather than NaOH. So by salting it they were able to get a solid soap but the glycerin was left behind and it was a harsh soap. Think of all the stories about Grandma's lye soap. If they had access to NaOH then they were able to make a much nicer soap leaving the glycerin intact.

It is one of our biggest complaints about the larger companies, how they remove most if not all of the glycerin in order to sell it to cosmetic companies or make 'glycerin soap'.....

So I am truly at a loss as to why you would want to go back in time removing the glycerin? It is not an impurity but one of the most gentle components of soap and very conditioning.
 
Lindy said:
That was my thoughts entirely. In the homesteading days they used to salt the soap to get it rise but it was because in essence they were making KOH by running water through wood ash rather than NaOH. So by salting it they were able to get a solid soap but the glycerin was left behind and it was a harsh soap. Think of all the stories about Grandma's lye soap. If they had access to NaOH then they were able to make a much nicer soap leaving the glycerin intact.

It is one of our biggest complaints about the larger companies, how they remove most if not all of the glycerin in order to sell it to cosmetic companies or make 'glycerin soap'.....

So I am truly at a loss as to why you would want to go back in time removing the glycerin? It is not an impurity but one of the most gentle components of soap and very conditioning.
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At the same time glycerin is removed, salt is added. Salt is also binding moisture. You even put salt on dusty roads to bind the dust with moisture.

Personally, I have noticed you can be glycerin addicted. If you provide too much, your skin will not make own. Also, from where is the glycerin pulling the moisture? Not from the air at least in this dry country during the winter.

All I know is that my hands quit to be dry when I begun experimenting with salted out soap

As you wrote, salting out served some special purposes earlier:
1. Making solid bar
2. Washing away excess lye as you had no exact scales, no clean lye etc. You always added enough of lye to ensure all of the oils got consumed.

The reason it many times was harsh was because salt was so expensive so they often did not wash properly. For laundry, they only once salted out the soap, leaving much lye in it.

Also, now we get so many different of oils easily. Earlier you took whatever fat you could get and from that you made a 0% superfatted soap. Even with CP you can make very harsh soaps if you do not properly pick your fats.
 
Just curious engblom but you said that ""The remaining brine had a bit of brown color."" Does the remaining brine liquid have any odor to it besides salt? I am curious if there are any other potential things that the salting removes besides just lye and glycerin? Like terpenes or tanins
 
SoapMakingTommy said:
Just curious engblom but you said that ""The remaining brine had a bit of brown color."" Does the remaining brine liquid have any odor to it besides salt? I am curious if there are any other potential things that the salting removes besides just lye and glycerin? Like terpenes or tanins
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The bars I salted out were coffee bars I added way too much coffee and grounds to. They started as super dark brown and when I was done, they were a light creamy brown and probably around 80% of the grounds were gone.

They looked really nice and the lather was creamy but it was just too drying. I even tried rebatching and adding back some glycerin and SF but it just didn't help.
 
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