Confused about Soleseif and adding fruit puree

Soapmaking Forum

Help Support Soapmaking Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
From anything I have read about Solesiefe Soap it is a German Brine Soap not seawater persay. Brine is much more concentrated than seawater. Even heating water up the highest concentration of sea salt I have been able to dissolve is 25%. Any salt that does not dissolve I add into my batter
 
Interesting that the article says that soleseife soaps need less cure time. Typical salt bars require more time to mellow out the harshness of the large amount of coconut oils - but still many salt bar tutorials will say that the soap is good to use in 4-6 weeks. I'm on my second (successful) batch of soleseife and I've been curing them for 8 weeks. Although my soleseife recipe doesn't have a huge amount of coconut oil, it is more than I usually use - I increased the coconut oil to 28%, about 10% more than I usually use - and adjusted the rest of my standard recipe around the coconut oil. With the increase in coconut oil, I wanted to give them a bit more cure time than the usual 4-5 weeks. I did try mine at 4 weeks and it was lovely - have I mentioned lately how much I am liking soleseife soap? Alot. I like it alot. - but I still feel they need a slightly longer cure than 3 weeks. I didn't check the recipe [in the article] to see what percentage her coconut oil is at (side rant: I really dislike when recipes are not shared in %) but I'm doubtful that it is really a good soap at 2-3 weeks.
 
The salt soap I made in may was with brine and added salt. The one I made this month was just added salt. The first soleseife soap I made (brine only) was in 2015 or 2016 - I'd have to check for sure which year it was. I think I still have a bar & should go look for it and see if I like it more now. I don't really remember what I thought of it before. And I think I'd like to give making more of it a go since I was so inexperienced at soapmaking the first time I made Soleseife.
 
I have a Soleseife I keep in stock which is a charcoal Soleseife soap, which ages 4 months before going to market. I have been making this soap for at least 5 yrs and remains a good seller. It is made with a 25% brine solution and enough charcoal to turn it dark gray. I also raise the CO higher than my regular bars but lower than my salt bars. I do 45% CO with a 15% superfat
 
I think I'm doing a 15% SF too - I can't remember off the top of my head and I'm at work so I can't look. The article only had 6.5% SF. I ran it through a calc (ran out of work to do already this morning) and its 30% CO, 60% OO, 5% each Shea Butter and Castor. With that much OO, it's going to need a longer cure to begin with. I don't think it's going to be a good bar of soap as early as she says it is.

I thought about doing a longer cure with my bars, but I'm not sure I need it. All soap will get better with a longer cure, true, but the slight increase in CO wasn't enough for me to consider a longer cure over 8 weeks. My dry skin was really happy with it at 4 weeks even. If future recipes increase the amount of CO, I will increase cure time - I think the high CO in a traditional salt bar is usually what my skin doesn't like and those take a long cure for me to tolerate using them (18+ months). It will be interesting playing with my soleseife recipe in future months, and seeing how the cure changes with more CO. Although there is part of me saying "Sherry, it ain't broke, don't fix it!"
 
I'm reading these latest posts and realize that some folks equate Soleseife to salt bars.
Just wanted to point out that they're not the same. Soleseife is made with either seawater or a brine (water to which salt is added in different concentrations).
Salt bars are soaps to which salt is added in different concentrations to the BATTER. You can surely combine the two, but then the resulting soap would be a salt bar and not strictly a Soleseife bar.
At least that's my understanding from reading about them and what one Soleseife soaper explained.
 
I'm reading these latest posts and realize that some folks equate Soleseife to salt bars.
Just wanted to point out that they're not the same. Soleseife is made with either seawater or a brine (water to which salt is added in different concentrations).
Salt bars are soaps to which salt is added in different concentrations to the BATTER. You can surely combine the two, but then the resulting soap would be a salt bar and not strictly a Soleseife bar.
At least that's my understanding from reading about them and what one Soleseife soaper explained.

I don't see a confusion in the last few posts. But I am only looking at page 2, so maybe I am missing something. I have only made Soleseife with brine and not with seawater and doubt I will ever use seawater for soap since making a brine is much easier and I don't live near a salty body of water.
 
Back
Top