1st attempt at salt bar...not sure what to do now

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jadelilly

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So....I tried salt soap. It was fun and I thought it was all going well until an hour after molding, I noticed it was getting crumbly on the top sides. Checked it, it was hard so I pulled it out and cut it. (I thought I had longer than that! I know it's fast but an hour!?) Anyway, cutting was not great...several chunks crumbled off and a couple slices broke into pieces. Sad me :(

I used 100% CO with 20% SF. I used 100% of my oil weight in salt...but I used a medium courseness salt rather than fine (not my first choice but what I had on hand and I really wanted to make it today) I added FO and some dried peppermint.

So my question.... Should I leave them and hope they get hard enough to hold together without crumbling more? Or should I crumble them and put them in another batch? Or try rebatching.

I also made these accidentally too big (they are a little over 3 inches tall...I couldn't stop it from pouring in time! The slices each weigh around 6.5 oz.

Here's what they look like:
20150526_213542.jpg


The uncut sides are smooth and pretty...too bad I don't have a mold that I could use so I don't have to cut them!

Thank you!!! Any thoughts or input appreciated.
 
Just leave them be, they will harden up in a day or so. The more salt you use, the faster the soap sets and the sooner it will need to be cut.

Using coarse salt makes them a bit more difficult to cut and the salt grains could be scratchy, I got cut pretty bad on my chest once from a coarse grain.

Rebatching salt bars doesn't work. You could always grate the broken pieces up and add them to new soap. Thats what I do when I have salt bars that didn't turn out quite right.
 
Thanks! I def don't want to get cut on it! Maybe I'll go ahead and add it into a new batch. Does it look strange when that's done? Do you have any pics? :)
Thank you!
 
I don't have any pics but it does look a bit odd, a bit lumpy. Adding it to a new batch won't help reduce the grain size. I'd just leave it be and make sure you use a wash cloth or bath poof instead of rubbing the bar directly on your skin.

If you want to try another batch, you can use canning salt from the grocery store. Its cheap and works really well. Maybe try 50% salt next time too, it will give you a bit more time before you have to cut.
 
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