# salt bar help!!!



## Sheryl (Oct 27, 2007)

I've been reading lyn pea's post about the salt bar that was in one of the swaps. I just loved it and wanted to make one. In her post, she says that you can use any soap recipe just add the salt. Okay! I love the wal-mart recipe, and only change it up to put shea butter in.

So I tried to make a salt bar last night. Of course just as I started putting ingredients together, I realized that my new stick blender was broken :/

Here is the recipe. Used the oils and lye mix pretty much room temp as I do all my soap. Even the ice cubes in lye water. I did run it through the sage lye calculator.

Here is the recipe:

14 oz water
7 oz gm just barely thawed
6.5 oz fo Day Spa (Royal Airomatics sp?)
16 oz coconut oil
8 oz safflower oil
8 oz shea butter
24 oz tallow
7.8 ozs lye

56 oz salt

used 14 oz ice cubes with the 7.8 oz of lye, set aside until the lye melted the ice cubes. Mixed all the other oils/fats together at room temp. Had to mix with a spoon! Took forever. added the gm, added the now water lye mix, stirred and stirred and stirred for like 30 to 45 min. Never really could get it to trace. Added the FO, still really didn't trace. So since it was getting close to 2 am, I finally gave up and added the salt. Still didn't really trace. kinda got thick, like really soft pudding. Colored it, poured into molds. Waited two hours like lyne said. tested for firmness....still very soft. finally gave up and went to bed. checked on it during the wee hours of the am....still soft. Never did go to gel, never got hot. This am about 10:30 it felt like very soft playdoe. Afraid it might get hard while I wasn't looking went ahead an pulled logs from molds and cut...laid out on table. I don't think it ever had a chemical change. The color I used usually starts out peachy, then after gell turns blue or purple. This is still putty soft, and still caustic and still peachy color. So Where did I go wrong? Surely it couldnt' be the difference instick blender and stirring with a spoon? Since this is a salt bar, can I re batch it? If I can re batch it....how do I do it?

Thanks for any help

Sheryl


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## Kalne (Oct 25, 2007)

Oh dear.....I don't have a clue what to tell you. The salt bars I make are 100% coconut oil superfatted at 20%. I don't know that I'd attempt a rebatch with salt. Seems like it might dissolve in the process and then who knows what the final product would be like. But then again, I'd hate to toss a batch of that size. Maybe take a portion of it and try rebatching with it.


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## Sheryl (Oct 27, 2007)

Okay Kalne, what is your salt recipe? I sure hate to waste 6.5 oz of FO! And that darn cocount oil has gone up to $6.98 at wal mart! I sure hate to throw this out.

Sheryl


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## Kalne (Oct 25, 2007)

Mine is very simple just as I said, it is all coconut oil. Plug in the size batch you want to make into the soap calc and change the superfat to 20%. I also discount the water because it takes a while to come to trace. It took me awhile to figure out how much to make so I didn't have any leftover since the salt add so much volume. And I make mine with all water. I have never tried GM in it. Probably wouldn't take so long to trace with milk. I color mine a pretty sea blue/green and I just can't get that color with GM. Plus with the high superfat I don't know that I'd want GM in there. I should try it someday. Maybe with the all coconut the color would be okay.

I also use this formula without salt. Some people find them a little drying but most really like them for the lather. And I have one guy who buys them for shaving soap. One of these days I'm going to make him a real shaving soap. :LOL

Oh, I cut my salt bars within 1 to 2 hours.


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## Sheryl (Oct 27, 2007)

okay....bump....bump.....any suggestions soap makers???

Sheryl


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## Guest (Jul 13, 2008)

Sheryl,
I have only made one batch of salt soap and mine turned out the same way yours did, never made another,,, So sorry I do not have a clue.. on some of the boards, I guess it makes a difference what kind of salt that you use.. Can't use espsom salts. I did...
Barbara


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## Sheryl (Oct 27, 2007)

well since I had already cut the bars, and they smell really really nice, they did not gel, but they are starting to cure and get hard. They seem to be curing okay. So I guess I'll keep watching them and see what happens.

Sheryl


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