Salt Bar Mess

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Spice

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A couple of weeks ago, I was having issues with overheating, so I asked about not gelling my soap. But what I got was something of a surprise. TOMH, mentioned about doing 40% lye and my soap would not gel. What I got was that my soap stopped overheating. So I have been doing 40% lye. Tonight I did that with my salt bars. Not a good idea. At least I am thinking that because my soap completely dried up in the pot. I did a HP.And stupid me, I saw that some was not working right but I kept on going and poured my SF oil, poured my EO, poured my salt. By then I just stopped and I could have taken the soap out with my hands and put it into the mold if it wasnt burning hot.
Here is my mess. I want to say, that this is not a failure, unless I want it to be. I find something good in most things. Here......not sure....but I will. The top pictures has a lot of oil that did not mix.

Salt Bar Mess_1.jpg


Salt Bar Mess.jpg
 
Ouch! Of course, in hp you actually do want it to gel, in a manner of speaking. You can't hp without it, as you are heating the soap through saponification. While the advice is good for most cp recipes, for certain uses and most certainly for hp, I would up the water amount.
 
Even in cp you do not necessarily want to cut water in salt bars. Salt bars will readily gel with the high coconut oil content and really turn out better with cp method, in my opinion. You will most likely not even know a salt bar is gelling but they do
 
I HP salt bars first off to see if I could, then tried again to see if I could get it right. I discovered that the HP bars seem to cure a bit faster then CP. I can use my HP salt bars after 3 months instead of the typical 6 month with CP.
 
I CP and use full water in my salt bars and the loaf heats up like its own little oven. Why HP salt bars?
I do that because I like the look I get when I HP. Its more work, I just like that marble look to it. After I sleep on it, or not, all nite, I came to the conclusion that when a recipe changes, so does everything else; including the time of cooking. So today I will kick myself till about.....400 pm my time; then try again. This time I believe I will just go back to the original recipe, that was never a problem.:)
I HP salt bars first off to see if I could, then tried again to see if I could get it right. I discovered that the HP bars seem to cure a bit faster then CP. I can use my HP salt bars after 3 months instead of the typical 6 month with CP.
I normally go about 2 months, I go by the way it feels. Is there some other way you check for when its done?
Ouch! Of course, in hp you actually do want it to gel, in a manner of speaking. You can't hp without it, as you are heating the soap through saponification. While the advice is good for most cp recipes, for certain uses and most certainly for hp, I would up the water amount.
Because I changed my recipe, I should have changed the cooking time too. I truly believe that I over cooked this soap. I am so used to setting my time for the full water recipe that I didnt even think about time cooking on the new recipe. When I first checked it, it looked good, my mistake was to leave it and not check more often. When I finally did check it again, I noticed that the edges of soap batter were dry ; thats when I knew I was having an issue.
 
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I normally go about 2 months, I go by the way it feels. Is there some other way you check for when its done?

Nope, thats how I check too. Have you used older salt bars? Do you notice a difference with a longer cure?
It takes around 3 months for the lather to be as fluffy as I like and another 2-3 months before they stop drying out my skin.
 
The moment I saw your broken log of soap, the first thing that I thought of was Rice Krispies Treats. That's just what they look like to me. lol

I agree with the others in that I would definitely use much more water than a 40% lye solution when doing HP, especially with HP salt bars.


IrishLass :)
 
Nope, thats how I check too. Have you used older salt bars? Do you notice a difference with a longer cure?
It takes around 3 months for the lather to be as fluffy as I like and another 2-3 months before they stop drying out my skin.
I found some samples from last year, and you are right, its softer and the leather is better. ****.
 
The moment I saw your broken log of soap, the first thing that I thought of was Rice Krispies Treats. That's just what they look like to me. lol

I agree with the others in that I would definitely use much more water than a 40% lye solution when doing HP, especially with HP salt bars.


IrishLass :)
I have to say, I had to laugh on that one. But last nite I just wanted to dump it. I have rebatch any soap, not sure if I can do that with this one. With all the salt and the SF.
 
I found some samples from last year, and you are right, its softer and the leather is better. ****.

This is why I make quite a lot of salt bars, so I will always have some that have cured for a good long while.

Don't try and rebatch your salt bars, it doesn't work. You will basically end up with a batch of weird salted out soap, not pleasant at all.
I powder my oops salt bars, then add that into a new batch of coconut soap or put it in a shaker jar and use it for hand soap.
 
This is why I make quite a lot of salt bars, so I will always have some that have cured for a good long while.

Don't try and rebatch your salt bars, it doesn't work. You will basically end up with a batch of weird salted out soap, not pleasant at all.
I powder my oops salt bars, then add that into a new batch of coconut soap or put it in a shaker jar and use it for hand soap.
I thought I use it for dish soap. Thanks :)
 
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