No, it doesn't, but in my over 7 years of soap making, I have noticed that clay helps. Maybe it doesn't help you. But I feel it helps me. That's all I am saying.
Salt Soap Info Search
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emi
Well-Known Member
Interesting! So you mean the clay helps to keep the EOs in the soap? I'm going to try that. 1tsp per lb?
When you say "35%" salt, does that mean 35% of the amount of water? If so, how much water do you use for brine soap? Do you calculate water amount by lye concentration or water to oil ratio?
emi
Well-Known Member
KOH for CP? Wow I've never heard of doing that. Is that to combat the hardness? I once made brine soap that just completely shattered when I tried to cut them so I had to lower the salt amount. I don't even know how I'm seeing recipes saying 100% salt. How is that even possible? Does that mean 100% of water amount by the way? Certainly not oils right? And I also remember another time I made CP soap accidentally using KOH and it stayed mushy and never hardened up. It was a real face-palm moment when I realized why. So does using part KOH allow prevent brine soap from being too hard and shattering??
I'm definitely going to try that clay anchoring for the EOs. I've never heard of that until this trhead. I'm tryin to put a brine soap recipe together.
When I measure my salt for salt bars, it is by percentage of oil weight. I like 50%, but people generally do anywhere from 25% to 100% of oil weight.
The salt is added after mixing the lye and oils together. If you are using lower salt amounts, bring the batter to a medium or medium thick trace to keep your salt suspended in the batter, rather than sinking to the bottom. If you are using higher amounts of salt like @cmzaha, your batter can be thinner and still hold the salt in suspension.
You can also make soleseife or brine bars by dissolving salt in the water used to dissolve the lye. That would be a much lower percentage of salt, since water can only absorb so much salt + lye before it will precipitate out. If you want to make that kind of salt bar, I'd recommend searching this forum for more info and suggested percentages of salt to water,
Some people do use a little bit of KOH with their NaOH to make a slightly softer salt bar, because salt bars harden up fast and are often quite crumbly if you try to cut them from a loaf, or even trim the edges. Personally, I make salt bars in cavity molds - no cutting or trimming required, and no need to make a dual-lye soap.
The salt is added after mixing the lye and oils together. If you are using lower salt amounts, bring the batter to a medium or medium thick trace to keep your salt suspended in the batter, rather than sinking to the bottom. If you are using higher amounts of salt like @cmzaha, your batter can be thinner and still hold the salt in suspension.
You can also make soleseife or brine bars by dissolving salt in the water used to dissolve the lye. That would be a much lower percentage of salt, since water can only absorb so much salt + lye before it will precipitate out. If you want to make that kind of salt bar, I'd recommend searching this forum for more info and suggested percentages of salt to water,
Some people do use a little bit of KOH with their NaOH to make a slightly softer salt bar, because salt bars harden up fast and are often quite crumbly if you try to cut them from a loaf, or even trim the edges. Personally, I make salt bars in cavity molds - no cutting or trimming required, and no need to make a dual-lye soap.
atiz
Well-Known Member
No no no. This is salt bar, not brine soap. So the percentage means that of the oil weight. Sorry, I should've been more clear.
For brine soap, I calculate it as usual for lye concentration, but I usually work with 30% lye concentration in that case. I measure out the water that's needed to dissolve the lye (that's about equal to the amount of lye), and make a saturated salt solution with the rest of the water. I forget, but I think it's about 26% salt solution -- that is, 26% salt in that rest of the water.
E.g.: let's assume I need 50g lye for my soap. To have a 30% lye solution, I need ca. 115g of water. I dissolve the lye in 50g of water, which means I'll have 65g of water left. Now, I want to have a 26% salt solution with that 65g of water, so I have to add 23g salt to it (23g salt in 65+23=88g solution -- 23/88=ca. 26).
But actually you don't have to do all the math, just dissolve in your leftover water as much salt as it can dissolve, and strain out the rest. (If you don't strain it out that's fine too; it will have some extra salt in it.)
Obsidian
Well-Known Member
No KoH, you use regular old NaOH just like any other CP.
emi
Well-Known Member
Thank you so much for this. I'm all about following the math so I really appreciate the breakdown. I've only made brine soap twice before. The first one was a total disaster and shattered everywhere. (I think I probably made the mistake of following a salt bar recipe but made brine soap!). The 2nd one I used less salt and canned coconut milk which I really liked, but my expensive EO scent was almost non-existent, plus since I just followed some brine recipe I never knew why and how to proportion the salt amount when changing the batch size. I always like to be able to create my own recipes rather than just following someone else's. So this info about the salt and water amount is super helpful. I guess I generally like knowing what I'm doing, you know? haha! I'm going to try that clay anchoring too. I'm now all set to try another brine soap!
Thanks. I just made a small tester batch. Can’t wait to try them out —next year
I’ve been scrounging information about re-working my formulas. For regular CP soap I’ve leaned that 95%NaOH + 5%KOH helps with lather when you use a lot of hard oils. That’s where my question was coming from. And the answer to 95/5 in salt bars was “No”.
I learned of “anchoring” EO’s when I first started soaping. It seemed to help keep those fading EO’s from just fizzling out. I think bentonite clay was the most helpful but it’s a thirsty clay and can firm up the batter too fast.
I am guessing you mean to use 70 g salt and not 70 ml. The same for your clay. Actually I would leave out the clay in a salt bar, you are going to deter the lather even more. Sometimes in Soapers Friend when adding in additives you have to check the measurements do not change from oz to gr etc. I would also lower the lye concentration to 30%, since salt will thicken your batter. Otherwise, your recipe looks fine.
@TashaBird I personally would use a bit more liquid as cmzaha suggested. Salt soap can move pretty quickly. I do 29% but 30% would be fine too.
It did change my measurements, it does that sometimes. I fixed it. And, I removed the clay.
I read that many people use %100 CO to get any lather. I figured that would be hard to work with. Is %70 CO going to still bubble?
Below is edited recipe. I can increase the avocado oil.
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Also, I read %8 for a lasting EO. That’s a lot! I usually use %5 because I like a strong fragrance. So, I’ll do it. Just want to confirm.
I've never used less than 80% CO. I would be concerned that is wouldn't lather well. I get a nice creamy lather. I use coconut milk in my soaps using the split method. I SF at 18% for my Salt Soap.
How much EO would you use for scent?
Removed the spirulina for colorant. I’m using Redmonds fine sea salt, and it’s a little pink. Going to see how my first batch comes out keeping it really simple. Here’s revised recipe again. Thinking I might use a combo of lavender and peppermint oil. ?
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Depends on the usage rate of the EO you're using. I don't use many EO's.
Yes, this!! ^^^
There is no such thing as a standard safe usage rate for all EOs or even FOs.
I believe this dangerous misconception comes from the fact that all soap calculators set a default scent rate of 3%. I wish they would just leave that box blank so people wouldn't assume that 3%, or any other percentage, is automatically going to be safe for every EO or FO across the board.
Use 3% of lavender, sure - but you can safely go even higher for better scent retention.
Use 3% of anise, cinnamon, or clove, or other "hot" EOs, and you will probably get skin burns, or at the very least, significant skin irritation.
Always check the safe usage rate given by the manufacturer, or with an online EO calculator (NOT the default number in soap calculators).
I checked them in EO calculator. I wish they had a bigger data base of EO though. They’re missing some oils that I think are fairly common.
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