Saltbar Soap

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SmellyKat

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I have seen some threads on saltbar soap. I want to try a batch this weekend.
I have a couple of questions:

I have a 3 lb loaf mold........how do I calculate the CO, castor oil, water, lye and salt?
I want to SF at 18%

I saw a thread that used the abbrev "SL". What is that??

When do I add the salt? EO? and colorant?

When do I take it out of the mold? And how long for it to cure?
 
Hi there, there is a sticky at the top of the forum for calculating how much oils you need for what size mold. I didn't find that the salt added a huge amount of volume, maybe 20 or 25% at most? I did a 1 kilo batch and it fit into a 12 inch long loaf style mold. Since you asked for my recipe on the other thread, here it is. I started with the recipe of another forum member, I think IrishLass and then tweaked. Thanks IrishLass!

1000 g CO, 380 g liquid (I used a mix of coconut milk and cucumber juice), 50% salt per oil weight, so 500 g, and 30 g of EO. I colored half the mixture with 1/4 t. of spirulina but it didn't darken a whole lot. Don't remember the lye amount off the top of my head but if you run it through soap calc at 13% superfat you will get what I did. I figured that the coconut milk would add fat so I didn't want to go overboard.

I did CPOP and should have tried cutting after about an hour or a little more. At 2 it was starting to get a little crumbly.

It also took awhile to trace. I added the EO at light trace. Add the salt at medium trace and then the colorant. Good luck. Let us know how it comes out.

And I think SL is sodium lactate ???
 
Judy is right about cutting this soap pretty quickly, it will get too hard to cut if you let it go too long. Before I got individual molds for my salt bars, I would cut it as soon as it was semi solid, it was very warm at that point. A few times I used a liquid color, and dropped the color on the salt before I mixed it in at trace, ended up with some pretty color flecks thru the soap.
 
Yes, SL is sodium lactate. I cured my salt bars for 4 weeks. I thought the first bar was alright and really didn't understand what the big deal was about them.

After 8+ weeks, what a difference! So much nicer. I'm now a big fan of salt bars. :D
 
you should try the recipe posted in smf tutorials. I tried it a few months ago and i am officially in love with salt bars now, they leave your skin feeling great!!
 
I like adding a bit of sugar toward the end of emulsification. I like adding powdered coconut milk and powdered goat milk at the same time.
I take a 15% lye discount and use 7% unrefined Shea in my recipe too.
The added fat from the two powdered milks adds to the fating of the recipe.

Paul
 
Salt bars are awesomeness!!
Still one of my favs.
2nd what PP said, cut early otherwise they get too hard.

I don't add castor anymore. Any other oil IMO kills the bubbles.
Coconut oil SF@20%
With up to 100% equal weight in salt.
This works terrific.
 
nattynoo said:
Salt bars are awesomeness!!
Still one of my favs.
2nd what PP said, cut early otherwise they get too hard.

I don't add castor anymore. Any other oil IMO kills the bubbles.
Coconut oil SF@20%
With up to 100% equal weight in salt.
This works terrific.

ok, sounds like a plan. SF @ 20%, coconut oil and 100% equal weight of coarse sea salt. Can I use coconut milk as the liquid?
Do I let the lye cool first before pouring in to oil? When do I take it out of the mold? About 1 1/2 hours after pour?

Can't wait to try it!! :)
 
Keep in mind that adding 100% the weight of oils in salt does NOT double the batch size... I don't actually know the fill stuff, though, as I tend to do individual molds for salt bars.

Oh, and I have found I like it better with about 75% the weight of oils in salt. But that's just me.
 
Question about salt bars:

I was mixing up a batch and was planning on using sea salt. Turns out that I didn't have enough to do 100% of the oil weight. So I read some where that I could use "non-iodized" salt. Luckily I had some Kosher salt on hand that wasn't "iodized" so I used that to fill out my ratio.

But does anyone know why you can't used iodized salt? Like regular table salt?
 
I made my first ever soap bars a couple of weeks ago and used 100% coconut milk. I used twice as much CM as lye. They turned out great _ but I didn't use SL and they stuck in the individual molds a bit. Took off some edges. Next time I'm going to use the SL!!

The first time for me to pour lye directly into CM - it turned out to be like over-creamed mashed potoatos ... but it stick blended into the CO just fine. No problems.
~hth
 
I used to use non-iodized but one day just tried the iodized and it came out exactly the same. Now I use whatever I have at hand. It makes no difference.
 
I've used both and noticed no difference.
Then I found "Pickling Salt" and though I also see no difference in the finished product you could make a case for label appeal since it doesn't have the anti-caking agents that are added to table salt. Pickling salt is just salt.
 
I always use cooking salt ... it has a caking agent... is this a problem I'm wondering??
 

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