Wow, tried this Euro salt recipe, love it!

So David Fischer had posted this, and of course I had to try it. http://candleandsoap.about.com/od/S...seife-or-BrineSalt-Water-Soap-Recipe.htm?nl=1

Of course I tried it at the most inopportune time, with a big order of wedding favors soaps to get out, mini hearts for which I don't have enough molds so am doing in partial batches.

Made with Pink Himalayan salt and my usual regular CP recipe. Added about half what his recipe called for just cuz I was experimenting. Thought I'd rebatch what I didn't use, but they are definitely salt bars, crumble if cut a day old, so they are gonna be turned into salt-scrubbies.

But I must say, I am most impressed with this technique. The result is totally smooth, like CP, love, love, love it.

They are really beautiful, thank you for sharing!

Those look really nice. I wonder how high of a salt concentration you can get, when I make my salt bars I use 100% salt.

They look really gorgeous. That's a great decorative heart mold, and a lovely pink. Very nice!

Here we would need somebody good at chemistry (DeeAnna)!

Why is it possible to dissolve so much lye after the water is close to saturated with salt?

I calculated a 20% SF salt soap recipe with 1000g of coconut oil with soapcalcs standard of 38% of the weight of the oil with water.
Soapcalc gave this:
Water 380g
NaOH 146.595g
Oils 1000g

- A brine solution is saturated at about 26% salt. The recipe calls for 20% of salt in the brine (25% of the weight of the water).
- A 20% brine solution is having 95g of salt in this case.
- With 95g of salt you can saturate 270.4g of water.
- 380g - 270.4g = 109.6g "left" of water to saturate

When I have been close to 1:1 NaOH solution it has been difficult to dissolve the lye. Now 109.6 g of water need to dissolve 146.6g of NaOH. How is this possible?

Is NaOH and NaCl able to share the water molecules because I can not see how this would be possible otherwise?

EDIT: I checked up, a NaOH-water (20C) solution gets saturated at 52.6% of NaOH. Thus not far from 1:1 in clean water I mentioned earlier.

NaCl is a salt. When it dissolves in water, it dissociates into Na+ and Cl- but this process does not greatly affect the H+ and OH- balance of the water.

NaOH is a base. When NaOH dissolves in water, it dissociates into Na+ and OH-, but in the process it also dissociates water into H+ and OH-.

The salt will affect the solubility of the base (and vice versa), but it's not quite so absolute as you are thinking about it. I'll see if I can dredge up a solubility table or chart for you.

edit: Can't find specific numbers for you, Engblom, but here are some thoughts for you to consider. The sodium ion (Na+) is the limiting factor, since both the salt and the base contain sodium. It's my guess that the order in which you dissolve the two will also affect the results -- as you get closer and closer to a saturated solution of one material, that will directly limit the solubility of the other. Since we use highly concentrated lye solutions for soapmaking, this will definitely be an issue to keep in mind.

One experiment -- make your normal lye solution for soaping. Let it cool to the normal temperature at which you soap. Keep track of the weight of your lye solution, so you know how much NaOH and H2O you have. Stir in the NaCl gradually, watching for the point at which a few grains of salt will no longer dissolve. At that point, you have reached saturation of NaCl in that particular lye solution. Weigh the solution and calculate the NaCl added. The most NaCl that could possibly dissolve is what you could dissolve in just plain water -- about 26% by weight of the water used -- so if you can't get that much NaCl to dissolve, you know the NaOH is reducing the solubility of the NaCl in this solution.

Another experiment -- Do the reverse. Make a brine (salt + water) solution and see how much NaOH will dissolve. The heating of the NaOH as it is added to the brine will affect the solubility, and ideally you'd want to keep the solution at a constant temperature to get a consistent answer.

The comment about the lye-salt-water solution being cloudy is interesting -- it makes me wonder if salt is starting to fall out of solution at that point. Not sure about that, but just something to think about. Not that this would really affect the recipe -- any precipitated salt is just solid salt like you'd add to a regular salt bar, only very, very, very fine particles!

As temperature goes up, you will be able to dissolve more salt. And vice versa.
As the NaOH % goes down, you should be able to dissolve more salt. And vice versa.

Hope this helps!

Those are really pretty. I've been hearing alot about brine soap on forums lately. Nice to know they work well. Might have to give it a try.

DeeAnna said:

NaCl is a salt. When it dissolves in water, it dissociates into Na+ and Cl- but this process does not greatly affect the H+ and OH- balance of the water.

NaOH is a base. When NaOH dissolves in water, it dissociates into Na+ and OH-, but in the process it also dissociates water into H+ and OH-.

You can't equate one with the other.

Click to expand...

Without wanting to steal the thread, I have one thing more I wonder about related to this topic: Sometimes I have tried to add salt to a nearly saturated NaOH solution. I have noticed you can not dissolve almost anything. It takes what looks like an eternity to disolve just a few grains of salt.

Is the order you dissolve stuff mathering? The recipe calls for first dissolving the salt, then the lye.

Very nice, thanks for sharing.

I edited my first post to add more information, Engblom. I think I answered your question in the edit. Please re-read?

DeeAnna said:

The comment about the lye-salt-water solution being cloudy is interesting -- it makes me wonder if salt is starting to fall out of solution at that point. Not sure about that, but just something to think about. Not that this would really affect the recipe -- any precipitated salt is just solid salt like you'd add to a regular salt bar, only very, very, very fine particles!

Click to expand...

I think this really is the case. I know how difficult it is to dissolve salt into NaOH solution. This would fully explain everything!

engblom said:

Sometimes I have tried to add salt to a nearly saturated NaOH solution. I have noticed you can not dissolve almost anything. It takes what looks like an eternity to disolve just a few grains of salt.

Click to expand...

This has been my experience as well.

Paillo -- I was wondering -- is this soap lathering well for you? The conventional wisdom is that a high % of CO is needed to get the lather with salt water, but David's recipe is only 30% CO. Very curious to learn about this! Thanks for any feedback you can offer....

I made this soleseife / brine soap basing on the recipe from David and knowledge from german forums. I am currently on a short sick leave so I have plenty of time for soaping .

I used a plain cp recipe (25% coconut, 27% palm oil, 8% castor and 1,5% lanolin and the rest olive oil), 28% lye concentration and too much salt .
I overused salt, taking 34% of the water weight instead of suggested 20-25%. Can't tell what I was thinking by then.

Once I poured lye into the salty water I realised the salt did not dissolve completely and I was scared the lye may not dissolve, too. Stirred like crazy. Tried to filter lye water but the mixture became so thick it clogged the strainer net. It was milky and thin pudding-like. Still decided to proceed (had no choice really as I had not enough lye to start again).

After mixing lye water with salt granules with oils it set up really quickly (I used stick blender just to emulsify the mix and then used spatula only and still it was fast moving). I have managed to do some miserable last minute in the pot swirl .

I cut the soap after 7 hours while it was still bit warm to touch (but not hot) and it seems it was a bit too late since I got crumbly edges here and there. I had a strong suspicion it may be lye heavy but tongue tested today and thank God it isn't (can't imagine rebatching something this rock hard).

End results - I got something in between soleseife and salt soap, with tiny salt granules here and there.

With 25% of coconut oil only it still lathers! No big bubbles but rather a smooth, lotion-like lather with small bubblettes . I should have adjusted the recipe and raise my superfat level from initial 11% to something around 14% once I realised I am on my way to salt soap instead of soleseife. But I am happy this is not a total disaster and the soap is usable. Will try to post a picture during a day.

Haven't been able to be here in what seems like forever!

Mine aren't done curing yet, only a few weeks old, but I have a bar at the kitchen sink, and totally love it. It's hard as a rock, and the lather is interesting. Lots of big puffy bubbles, but also that lovely lotion-ey lather that Mintle describes. It doesn't feel as smooth as my usual CP, nor as gently exfoliating as my salties, but in a very nice place in the middle.

I didn't measure the salt cuz it was a last-minute impulsive experiment, but I know I didn't go over 20 percent, prob more like 15 percent. Had to stir the heck out of the lye mix 'cuz I had the cloudy result too, but it did mostly well without the salt precipitating out. The little that did I'm sure is why there's some of the exfoliating factor.

Had plenty of time to work with it, could easily have done a nice swirl. I made way too much, so in addition to the little hearts I made a small loaf. And, didn't realize how salt soap-like it was until I cut the loaf the next day, and thought, 'hmmm, this is interesting'. At that point, totally cuttable without crumblies, but definitely not my normal CP. At the second day, there was no chance of cutting it without crumbling and splitting.

Since I had WAY too much, and it was unswirled unscented at the request of my buyer, I made sugar scrubbies out of most of the rest of it. I love them too, some shea butter was all I needed. Was afraid they'd be crumbly, but they came out beautifully.

I am really in love with this technique, though it's not as forgiving as normal CP soap. Also, I used babassu instead of coconut oil, so that's another variable I have to figure out. Lots of tweaking to do, but I may make this my standard CP recipe, that's how much I love it.

I have also given this a go today, used 30%PO 30%CO and 40%EVOO as that was what I had knocking around. Scented with sandalwood, pine and oakmoss as I had those spare too. Should hopefully be a nice masculine scent.

I first added the salt then proceeded to add the lye. Most of it dissolved apart from a few little granules of I dissolved salt in the bottom so I just mixed it all together with the oils. I found it was fairly fast moving too so had to do an in the pot swirl.

These are my bars, cut them after 5 hours. They were really hard, couldn't have left them overnight or they would have never cut into bars. The mica faded more than I would have liked. I wanted a camo look for the masculine scent.

FWIW .. soaping 101 has a video making this soap and she just dumps the salt into the lye water while it's hot saying the hot lye helps dissolve the salt.

Seems to work for her ..

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5xZkbfz-b8&list=UU6NFc1XyVdzuyQw-f9HG42g[/ame]


any thoughts on how it might work if using any of the milks rather than water?

Very nice!!
I've got my first ever salt bars curing right now...been about 3 weeks (it's sooooo hard to wait!) and I can''t wait to try them. I've never tried a salt bar, or even HEARD of them until I started reading this forum.

Will definitely have to try this method next As a noob I totally appreciate your posts and feedback on your results.