Yesterday, I shared one of Crystal’s two posts about salt soap and I had promised I would share the second post today. I hope you find this post educational.
| After a discussion on MMS Facebook page, I learned that you could add more Fine Dead Sea Salt to soap and it will be ok. Out of curiosity I made a test batch using 80% of the weight of oils as salt. This is the exact same recipe as Sea Salt Shine, just more salt. I made this batch a very tiny 5 oz. total weight in size.
Collect needed items:
First step I like to always take is mixing the sodium hydroxide and water together, so it can start cooling. However, when working with such a small batch I will weigh out my oils first, as you can melt the oils in the microwave. Also the smaller amount of Lye water cools faster than a large batch. Weigh out oils, mix your lye solution, and bring both to approximately 125 degrees F. I work with temperatures of either mixture to be within 5 degrees of each other. Exact temperature is not critical. Combine oils and lye solution. Stir until thin trace. This step for this small of a batch took less than 30 seconds. Add your fragrance, stir thoroughly, stir in your sea salt, pour into your selected mold. My trial size mold is a silicone cupcake pan from Wal-Mart, it does impart a little bit of a pinkish tint to the bottom of my soaps, but I am the only one using so I figure it does not hurt anything. 🙂 Observation : A little longer in the mold before the bars would release. With very little to no sweating on the surface of the soap. My surprise: the surface of the soap is so smooth, like soft as a polished stone. I am so excited to try this bar out in the shower! I believe I have found a new recipe! 🙂 |
 Adding lye to water.  Adding the lye solution to the oils.  Mixing the oils and lye solution together.  Completely mixed soap. |
 Adding the salt to the raw soap.  Finished soaps as they are curing. |
 Soap in the mold. |
Now it is time for a comparison:
When formulating your own recipe take into consideration the extra volume added to the batch by increasing the salt to 80% of the weight in oils. As you can see from the photos, the original 6% salt batch resulted in 11/2 bars of soap. The 80% salt batch resulted in 2 full bars of soap. Each weighing approximately 3 oz. The 80% salt bars are also whiter.
I hope everyone finds this post to be helpful and informative.
Thank you,
Crystal
Dirty Water Soap Works
 Comparison of soaps as they are in the mold. |
 Comparison of curing soaps. |
Now that you’ve broken down salt bars to a very small batch size I am quite intrigued. Aside from the avocado oil, I believe I have all those ingredients on hand. I can see this being a project for the weekend.
Thanks for sharing!
~Robin
Robin, in my opinion, I do not like the 80% salt….this is the first time I have tried it, I really do not like the “feel” of the soap. Just my two cents! 🙂 I think this weekend I will try Tess’s version of the more salt to see how her recipe feels compared to mine.