Saturday, August 22, 2009

Sea Salt Soap?

A new soap for Sweet Creek Herbs, sea salt soap.

I learned all about this soap online. I own several soap books, but none of them mention this soap. And, in my opinion, they are missing one heck of a soap.

The concept of this soap is to add just about as much salt as you do oils. Most use as much, some use 80% as much. I used 100% weight of the oils. A 3 1/2 lb. batch of soap oils uses 3 1/2 lbs. fine sea salt. Actually, I used 3 lbs. 5 ounces with 3 ounces of Celtic grey salt, a slightly bigger grain salt. But, it equaled 3 1/2 pounds.

In order to make a salt soap that lathers well, you have to use a lot of coconut oil. Coconut oil produces big bubbly lather in soap, even in cold sea water (filled with salt). This is why it is used in salt soap and at a high percentage. I use 75% coconut oil in this soap, along with 25% blend of avocado and castor oils. I superfat at 16.5% to make up for the huge amount of coconut oil, and discount my water 20% (using 20 ounces purified water).

After the soap has lightly traced, and the colorant and essential or fragrance oils have been added, stick blend or stir until the soap comes to a medium trace. Add the salt at a steady rate while hand stirring. Add all of the salt and mix it in well.














After the salt soap is completely mixed well, pour it into your prepared molds. I line my molds with plastic trash bags, and after the soap is poured, I cover it with saran wrap plastic. I was a little bit concerned about the plastic wrap the first time I made this soap, because for the first time in my soap making experience, I'm putting a soap in the oven.

The first time I made a salt soap, I did not do this, and it was a tough job cutting it without crumbling on me. So, I read this advice of putting it in a low temp. oven (I use "warm"), and then shutting the oven off for two hours. Then, take the soap out and immediately cut it.

Well, that's what I did the second and subsequent times, and it works very, very well. No crumbling, beautiful cut salt bars. The soap is quite warm when I cut it, but it handles superbly.

And, this recipe and process produces an awesome soap. This one has two different ultramarines to make this color, as well as lavender and rosemary essential oils. It is my favorite sea salt soap so far.

I've just listed this soap at my Etsy shop. I'm taking it out to the Appalachian Fair tomorrow, too. It has cured for over three weeks, (I've been using it for two of those weeks:), and I'm excited to introduce this new product among my other wares.

I would love to hear about your salt soap making experiences. Thank you for reading mine.

2 comments:

Elizabeth said...

I love handmade soap!

Daisy Soap Girl said...

It is nice and I like your technique. Good luck at your Fair.