Bedtime Bath Salt Bars

Can you believe that it has been four months since I made a batch of soap?

I made my Christmas Tree Feather Swirl soap in late September and that was it for 2014. My husband and I had a cross-country move looming and I was busy with a million things getting ready for it. Plus I didn't want to haul a bunch of uncured soap two thousand miles.

By late January, we were settled enough in our new home for me to start thinking about making soap again. After such a long hiatus, I was worried that I wouldn't remember how to make soap. So I chose something simple by design and also out of necessity. I was out of almost all of my oils, as I had used most of them up and didn't want to buy more until after we moved. But I did have some coconut oil left, and two pounds of pink Himalayan sea salt.

You know what that means.

SALT BARS!

(You may remember that I adore salt bars. Hubby likes them, too. You can see previous batches that I've made here. And here.)

I did drag some fragrance oils with us on our road trip. And a bottle of lavender FO leaked all over the place. BUT the car smelled lovely. And lavender is known to be calming, and it is important to stay calm while driving.

One of the scents that made the cut was Element's Bedtime Bath fragrance oil, which also happens to feature lavender - along with chamomile - and it smells like a popular brand of baby lotion.

Salt soap batter gets thick pretty fast once the salt is added, so swirls and other intricate designs are just about impossible. So I decided to do a two-layer soap.

For this batch of salt soap, I used 100% coconut oil. Salt is a lather-killer, so a large percentage of coconut oil is necessary to restore the lather. In fact, coconut oil lathers well in salt water, unlike other oils. And because coconut oil can be drying in high amounts, I included a high superfat of 20% to make the soap more nourishing.

My recipe called for 32 ounces of oils. I decided to use the salt at a 1:1 oil:salt ratio, meaning that I used equal amounts of oil and salt. So for 32 ounces of oil, I used 32 ounces of salt.

The colors that came to mind for this baby lotion-type fragrance were pink and purple, probably due to marketing influences. I brought the soap to trace and then split it in to two equal portions. One portion I colored with ultramarine pink, the other with ultramarine violet.

Next I added 16 ounces of pink Himalayan salt to each portion. Then I poured the purple layer into my acrylic slab mold, smoothed it out, and then carefully poured the pink layer on top of it. Once both layers were poured, I inserted the dividers and let the soap gel.

A few days later, I unmolded the bars. Salt bars get hard really fast, so I could have unmolded much sooner. I just didn't get around to it right away. I especially like using my slab mold with dividers for salt bars because it takes all of the guesswork out of when to cut the soap. Salt soap needs to be cut at just the right time. Wait too long and you get a crumbly mess. With the dividers, I don't have to worry about cutting. And because salt bars are so hard, unmolding was a breeze.

Here's a videoooooooooo!


I'm glad that I've got a new batch of salt bars made and curing! We'll be set for a while now. And with such a fresh, soothing scent, we'll smell like clean, happy babies!

Spa Salt Bars With Activated Charcoal

If you are a soapmaker like me, you probably have several batches of soap laying around at any given time. And you probably don't use up one batch and then start in on another. You probably take a bar from this batch, and then next time take one from another, and ooh, I haven't used one of these bars in a while...

Sometimes I end up with soap that has been around for a year or more. Which is fine. It seems soap is like wine - it gets better with age. I even still have a bar from my very first batch of cold process soap back in February 2011. It's a plain little bar and the scent has completely faded, but it still looks to be a fine bar of soap otherwise.

Anyway, that is how I ended up making my last batch of salt soap last over a year. If you've been following this blog for a while, you may remember that it was a Pineapple Ginger-scented soap made with coconut oil, avocado oil, castor oil, and Pink Himalayan salt.

I really enjoyed that batch. The recipe makes big, long-lasting bars. And I especially like salt bars for my face. I have oily skin, and it feels like the salt just gets into my pores and balances everything out.

When I realized that I was down to the last bar, I just had to make some more. I did things a little bit differently this time, though.

Last time, I followed Sarah's salt soap recipe. I love this recipe and highly recommend it. The avocado oil makes the bars more luxurious, and the castor oil gives the lather a boost.

This time, though, I decided to try a recipe of 100% coconut oil with a 20% superfat. Usually soapmakers
use about 30% or less of coconut oil in their recipes because it can be drying. But, as a neat kind of break-the-rules thing, coconut oil can be used exclusively if you include a high superfat. Superfat refers to the amount of unsaponified oils in the soaps, meaning that those oils don't react with the lye and remain free-floating in the soap, resulting in more nourishing bars. For a normal soap recipe, I usually go with a 7% superfat. But for 100% coconut oil soap, I went with 20%.

Coconut oil is the main oil in salt soap because coconut oil is the only oil that lathers well in salt water, making it perfect for salt bars. It's typically 80-100% of the total oils. Last time I used 80%. This time I wanted to try 100%.

The salt I used was different, too. Instead of using Pink Himalayan salt, I just used plain old table salt. The amount was different, too. Last time, I used the salt at about 65% of the total oil weight. This time, the rate was 100% of the oil weight, meaning that for 32 ounces of oil, I used 32 ounces of salt.

Salt soap is great for the entire body, but, as I mentioned, I especially like it for my face. So, when deciding on how to proceed with this new batch, I thought of activated charcoal. Activated charcoal is supposed to be good for detoxifying oily, acne-prone skin. I figured the salt plus the activated charcoal would make a great facial bar. I used one teaspoon of activated charcoal per pound of oil.

I love how the sides are shiny and smooth like granite!

Because salt bars have a spa-like feel to me, I wanted to keep things more natural this time, fragrance-wise. So I scented this batch with cedarwood essential oil (which, according to Wanda Sellar's The Directory of Essential Oils, may be good for oily acne-prone skin, too) and clove essential oil. I would have liked to have used sandalwood essential oil as well, but, gawd, have you seen how much that stuff costs? So I used Bramble Berry's Indian Sandalwood fragrance oil instead. For 32 ounces of oil, I used 1 ounce of the sandalwood FO, .80 ounce of cedarwood EO, and .20 ounce of the clove EO. I went easy on the clove because too much can irritate the skin. Clove can also accelerate trace.

When my oil and lye solution were both around 100 degrees F, I added the fragrance blend and the activated charcoal to the melted coconut oil. (I mixed the charcoal with some glycerin first to avoid clumping.) Then I added the lye solution to the oil and stickblended to trace. Once the soap traced - which it did pretty quickly - I gradually whisked in the salt. When it was incorporated well, I poured the soap into the mold.

For this batch, I opted to use my slab mold. Salt soap can set up very quickly, and if you make a loaf and don't slice it at just the right time, you can end up with hard, crumbly soap that is difficult to cut. Using a slab mold with dividers takes the guesswork out of when to cut. I let the soap gel and unmolded it the next day.

Here is a video showing how I made this batch of salt soap:


The lather of a salt bar is different from that of a regular bar of soap. Salt soaps tend to be more frothy and less bubbly. The lather kinda reminds me of shaving cream or the foamy head of a beer. You can see the difference in the video above - I compare the lather of my regular soap to that of the salt soap.

I'm so glad to have salt soap back in my rotation, especially as the weather heats up. It seems that the hotter it is the more oily my skin gets. And these salt bars will be a treat for my face and the rest of my skin!

Have you made or used salt soap? Did you like it? Do you enjoy any other additives to make salt soap extra special?

Pineapple Ginger Salt Bars

Now that Christmas has come and gone, I'm actually starting to get low on soap for the first time in a while. I made several batches as gifts for family and friends - the holiday soaps are gone except for a few end pieces that I kept. And because I was saving the holiday soaps for Christmas, we used up most of our older bars.

Which means I can make more new batches! I try to stagger my soapmaking sessions so that we don't have too much soap around here. Christmas helps thin the herd some, as do birthdays and other gift-giving occasions. If I have more soap than I know what to do with, I'll pack a box to send off to my mom and dad. 

With a dwindling supply of soap, I am itching to experiment with some new techniques. Something I've been wanting to try for a while is making salt soap.I saw a wonderful tutorial on salt bars by Sarah from Ladybug Soapworks some time ago and I have been looking forward to trying it.

Making salt bars is similar to making regular soap, but the recipe is a bit different. Salt is usually included at somewhere between 50% - 100% of the oil weight when making salt bars. Suppose my total oil weight is 32 ounces - if I want my salt ratio at 100%, I would add 32 ounces of salt to my traced soap; if I want my salt ratio at 50%, I would use 16 ounces of salt.

Pink Himalayan Salt

Because salt is a lather-killer, the soap recipe must be adjusted. Salt bars are usually high in coconut oil, which is typically anywhere from 80% - 100% of the total oils in salt soap. Why coconut oil? Because it is the only oil that lathers well in salt water, making it perfect for salt bars. For my salt bars, I followed Sarah's recipe and used 80% coconut oil, 15% avocado oil, and 5% castor oil.

But won't all of that coconut oil be drying to the skin? After all, soapmakers normally use no more than 30% coconut oil in their recipes because the soap can be drying otherwise. The answer would seemingly be yes - unless you do a high superfat. Superfatting means that the soapmaker uses more oil than is necessary to react with the lye, leaving a portion of the oils unsaponified. The unsaponified oils create a mild, moisturizing bar, and they also assure that the soap is not lye-heavy by providing a buffer. (Superfatting is also sometimes referred to as a lye discount.) I usually factor a superfat of 7% into my regular soap recipes, meaning that 7% of the oils in the recipe do not react with the lye, leaving them unsaponified and sort of free-floating in the bar. But because coconut oil can be drying in high amounts, a higher superfat is needed. Most soapmakers go with a 15% - 20% superfat for salt bars. I went with a 20% superfat.

A slab mold with dividers keeps salt bars simple.

The kind of salt that you use is important, too. I have read that epsom or Dead Sea salts are NOT good choices for salt bars, as they draw moisture from the air and will cause the soap to "sweat" excessively. I found some pretty Pink Himalayan salt and used it at 65% of my oil weight (which worked out to be 21 ounces of salt to 32 ounces of oils). Why 65%? Because that was how much salt I happened to have. I wanted to try 70% to start, but just didn't have quite enough salt to get there. I'm betting that 65% will be wonderful, though, and I can try different ratios in future batches.

Another thing to keep in mind is that salt bars get rock hard very quickly.They need to be cut soon after molding, like within a few hours or less. If you wait too long to cut a loaf of salt soap, it will likely crumble and be generally difficult to deal with. To avoid the anxiety of cutting bars ("Do I cut now? Is it too soon? Or have I waited too long?"), I opted to use a slab mold with dividers so that I would not have to cut anything.

And for the scent? Salt bars seen kinda spa-like to me, so I chose something tropical. I settled on a yummy Pineapple Ginger fragrance oil from  Elements Bath & Body. Sadly, it appears that Elements no longer carries this scent, as I cannot find it on their website.

Here's a video of the making of my Pineapple Ginger salt bars:


What's so great about salt bars anyway? Well, I have never tried salt soap before, but I hear that it produces a creamy, lotion-like lather that leaves the skin feeling moisturized. My mom and I once visited a boutique in Sandestin, Florida that had a salt scrub that was apparently very popular. A shipment had just come in and the salespeople were pushing the scrub pretty hard, inviting customers to try it out in the store. We asked, "Won't the salt be drying?" The saleswoman said, "Oh, no, not at all. Come try some." And she did a little demo and let us try out the scrub ourselves. It left our hands surprisingly soft and smooth. We didn't buy any of the scrub (it was kinda pricey), but she told us that they can barely keep it in stock and that it sells out as quickly as it arrives. I'm wondering if salt soap performs similarly and can't wait to find out!

I did try a bar from this batch about two weeks after making it, just to see how it compares to my regular soaps. The lather was creamy, rich, and dense and it left my hands feeling soft. "Lotion-like" is a good way to describe the lather. Not in the sense that the lather itself has the consistency of lotion, but in the sense that it felt like I had applied lotion to my hands after using the soap. The soap is nice now, but I'm sure that it will be even nicer after another four weeks or so of curing time!

Have you ever made or bought salt soap? How did you like it?