Teach Soap

I keep reading about soap salt bars... can someone explain to me what it is and how it compares to a regular soap bar. I always thought salt on our skin will make it to feel dry and itchy? Am I wrong?

Neither I nor anyone in my family cares for them. They require a lot of coconut oil to counter the lather suppressing effects of the salt. Both are drying. The salt might be exfoliating, but if you scrub too hard, you'll actually get a rash. I made them twice. It was a cool recipe with Hawaiian black salt, so they looked great. But they made my husband's skin too dry, gave my son a rash, generally did not feel great. I wound up giving them away, combined with other soaps that felt good.

Everyone's recipe and experience are different. My salt bars are loved by my customers, especially those with sensitive skin. They produce more of a "lotiony" lather, and not the bubbly lather of my other bars. The proper superfat percentage completely counters the drying effects of coconut oil.

My skin doesn't like salt bars, even with a 20% superfat. I do, however, like brine bars where the salt is added to the lye water and fully dissolved.

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Linda
I know the voices in my head aren't real, but they sure have some great ideas!

Brine bars, I've never heard of that. How do those feel? Do you have to use high coconut oil or does dissolving the salt make its impact on lather n/a?

Thanks. ..guess I ll hold off trying a salt bar for now They sound interesting but cons seem to outweigh the pros

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Linda
I know the voices in my head aren't real, but they sure have some great ideas!

Very cool. Thanks. That is my next experiment.

I've been using 80% olive oil, 15% coconut oil, and 5% other oil with a long cure time to get a hard bar. If the dissolved salt makes the bar hard, how low do you think I can go on the olive oil and still get a good bar?

My first many experiments were of soaps that felt great but were way too soft and melted after just a few uses.

Soaps made with a high % of olive oil need to be kept out of water. Even though it makes a hard bar, it seems to melt more quickly if left in even the tiniest bit of water.

My first soaps were 75% olive, 20% coconut and 5% castor. They made a nice hard bar with a great lather. I superfatted at 7%.

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Linda
I know the voices in my head aren't real, but they sure have some great ideas!

I tried adding 25% of salt ppo as someone here recommended n it came out terrible.

I use prob 1/50th that amount of salt & I add it to the hot oils rather than the lye. Just a little bit of salt hardens up the bar nicely. No need to go overboard on the salt.

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Linda
I know the voices in my head aren't real, but they sure have some great ideas!

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Logansama aka Belinda
Nor Cal

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Linda
I know the voices in my head aren't real, but they sure have some great ideas!

Oh, ok. Brine bars. Thank you for the clarification. I did not understand properly what you were talking about. I thought you meant just regular soap w an ungodly amount of salt. I clicked on your link and stayed to do some research on that. Will read more up on that later perhaps. Sounds pretty interesting I just don't have the time right now. But thanks for bring the idea to my attention.