So I attempted to make a brine soap

[Arimara]

Recipe used was:

14oz coconut oil
1oz avocado oil
1oz castor oil

4.52oz distilled water (I split it)
2.26 oz lye (gave me a 20% superfat)

FO- Jasmine Romance (SOS sniffie)

I'm noticing that it's a leaky mess and I spilled some oil substance all over the lid of one of my containers while moving the mold. Is this normal?

 

[Obsidian]

Sounds like it's overheating and separating. I would guess its a combo of high coconut oil and your FO. I would try to blend it back together if its still soft enough.

 

[Arimara]

I'll leave it alone and try again then. I'll just let the lye water cool down more than I did. Admittedly, it was a bit warm.
I will also tweak things a bit to make it closer to a classic recipe.

 

[dixiedragon]

What temp were your oils and lye when you mixed them? I have only made salt bars twice. I use 100% salt. Since it's coconut oil I soap at about 90 degrees - the lye water is room temp. Because of the low temp mine seems slow to trace so I usually end up putting it back on the stove. I think with the salt in the mix it is harder for us to see what is going on, so I try to err on the side of extra mixing.

 

[Arimara]

Both times the oils were around 80 degrees or so. I tweaked the recipe to 8oz coconut, 5.50oz of olive oil, 2oz rice bran and .5oz castor oil. I also mixed in the salt before the lye but did not split the water 50/50 as I did in the other soap. I got a little curious and may have possibly set myself up a bit. This second batch is still liquidy. The first batch is hardening up nicely. The only difference with the lye water is that I cooled it to 145 because not all of my coconut oil was melted and I generally have an issue with tracing fast. Should I add that at neither times did I use a SB but I stirred with a spatula?

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

Just to be clear - did you dissolve salt in the water or add to the batter?

 

[Arimara]

Salt was dissolved in water. No salt added at trace.

 

[Arimara]

I must say, after both attempts, one a miserable fail I threw out and the other curing rather nicely, I'm going to keep trying till I get something I really like. The only difference is: my next attempt will use 25% of my water's weight, which I feel is what I should have been doing. Other recipes have said to use a percentage of the total oil weight and that did not sound right to me unless I wanted to make a salt bar. The only question left is how much to SF. My skin sucks in the winter.

 

[Obsidian]

When making brine soap, you want use salt at 25% water weight, I use full water so I can get a bit more salt into the soap. Your SF depends on how much coconut you use, for the first recipe you posted I would use 20% SF.

I must do my salt soaps a bit different from everyone else, I soap it hot or else it takes forever to trace when I use a lot of coconut. For brine soap, I treat it like normal CP, SB until thin/medium trace then pour. I do like to add my colorant/FO to the oils before the lye.