Salt Bars Leaking

[Wendy.B]

I have never really been interested in making salt soap bars, but after a number of years making soap thought I would give it a go, because everyone says how great they are on the skin, and I am always up for being a lab rat for something new.
However I think, there has been a gremlin in the works. It didn't set up quickly like I expected. It is hard now but it is leaking water. Now I don't know if it is the recipe or the fact it is winter here and the weather is cooler or if the salt is just leaching the water out of the soap.
This is the recipe I used..
600g Coconut Oil
200g Palm Oil
150g Olive Oil
50g Castor Oil
300 mls water.

Think next time I am going to use maybe just coconut and a bit of castor oil.

 

[FGOriold]

What kind of salt did you use? Dead sea salt will leak water if used in cold process soap. You should use plain table salt or fine grain sea salt but NOT dead sea salt.

 

[julieanne]

I topped off a loaf with sea salt, large grain, not sure if it was "Dead" sea salt, and it absorbed water from the air & curing soap and weeped and weeped until it had reached a saturation point and quit. I think your soap will also reach that sat point. Give it some time and see. Point of reference is, it took ~2 months for mine to quit.

I, too, recommend table salt or possibly epsom salt next time. Someone out there knows more about this than I do.

 

[Ginka]

I don't think you can use epsom salt in soap. you can use himalayan pink salt.And make sure salt that u using doesn't have iodine in it. Iodinized table or sea salt will have same effect as Dead Sea salt.

 

[FGOriold]

Both sea salt and pink Himalayan sea salt work great in salt bars with no weeping at all - those are what I use in all my salt bars and I never have weeping problems. Only issues with dead sea salt.

 

[shunt2011]

Perhaps it's the oils your using. Generally when I make salt bars I use between 80-100% Coconut oil with a 20% superfat. I've never had weeping of oils even in really humid weather. Just a guess though since I've never tried any other way.

 

[Wendy.B]

Thank you for the feedback. I used uniodized cooking salt. Next time I am going to do a higher percentage of coconut and maybe use sea salt or pink Himalayan salt, which is what I put on top as decoration.. I will wait and see what happens in the mean time. Did the old zap test..hah dumb move talk about tongue puckering salty

 

[Relle]

Wendy its the weather, we have had soooo much rain lately, salt is hygroscopic. I made mine on the 19/6 and just went and checked and its dry today. Since I made it, it has had moisture on the outside, but we have had 3 days of sun and finally its OK. I used flossy fine salt, which is butchers salt with 100% CO and 20%SF and it turned out well. You shouldn't have any issues with the uniodized cooking salt, so I'd use that again and try the 100% CO and see how that goes. Its my first salt soap, so I'm very happy.

 

[Wendy.B]

Funnily enough, I went out today Relle and the soap is dry, it was dripping yesterday. It has been dry and windy today so maybe that was some of the issue.. It is going to bucket down tomorrow so maybe I will bring it out of the soap work shop and put it here inside somewhere.

 

[DeeAnna]

Yep, it's the weather. I used uniodized "canning" salt (basically a fine crystal table salt w/o iodine) for my salt bars. They weep in super humid weather. Dry up when it's less humid. What can I say ... salt is hygroscopic and that is just something it does.

Most commercial salts for household use have additives to keep the salt from caking up. Even this table salt can succumb to a long period of humid weather, which is why I put some grains of rice in my salt shakers in summer to break up any lumps. When you stir the salt into your soap, those additives no longer work. My 50 pound block of stock salt I have out in the barnyard for the horses also gets damp in humid weather.