Re: salt soap
brandnew said:
could one just add a geneorous amount of salt to a recipe? Or do I need to follow a genuine salt soap recipe? By generous I mean if the oils were 600g just add 200g ? Just to benefit from the 'extra' lather? Thanks
You don't have to follow a specific recipe or add a specific amount of salt, but there some general guidelines to follow seeing as how adding salt will actually
diminish your lather instead of
adding extra lather.
Because of the diminished lather factor, salt bar recipes are formulated to contain a very high amount of the uber lathering coconut oil. This is because coconut oil soap is pretty much the only kind of soap that has shown itself to lather in the presense of salt water. It's very possible that 100% PKO or 100% babassu oil soap will do the same since they are also high lathering oils, but I don't know of anyone who has put that to the test yet.
Having said that, the kind of lather you can expect from a salt bar is somewhat different from the lather of a bar without salt. Depending on how much salt you add in a 100% CO salt bar, it can range from very foamy/creamy (that's with 100% salt added), to more of a foamy bubbly mix with lesser amounts of salt. The ratio of bubbly lather to foamy lather increases the lower you go on the salt (i.e. it will be more bubbly than foamy with less salt).
Some people like to go with 100% CO to 100% salt as per oils. When I first started making salt bars, those were the ratios I used as per Iben's recipe. Then I started playing around and experimenting until I reached the recipe I use now, which I like even better. And that's what everyone needs to do- play around with ratios to see what they like better. My present fomula contains 25% salt, 100% CO and either coconut milk or goat milk as my liquid, superfatted at 13% because that's what I ended up really liking better.
Other people use 80% salt, some people use 50% salt, ect.., some people lower the CO a little and add in some extra oils. It'll be different for each person as to what they like better (you'll have to play around), but you'll want to make sure to keep your CO level fairly high to squeeze some bubblage out of it- I would say at least 50% CO, but that's based on what others have said. I've only ever used 100% CO with my own.
So, to answer your question- yes, you can add 200 grams of salt to a 500 gram batch.
IrishLass
