Teach Soap

Hi, I am new to soap making (and very determined, as I have already moved on to salt bars!). I made a one pound batch using the following recipe from the everything soap making book. The salt bar section told me to use 1 pound of my favorite batch, so I went with the one that had the ratio "used by some of the best soapers around."
2.4 oz lye
5 oz water
10.5 oz olive oil
5.25 oz coconut oil
The last ingredient was .5 oz of castor oil and I didn't have any... I'm honestly not sure if I omitted this part or if I substituted and used either an additional .5oz of coconut or olive oil...sorry, I've already made a few different kinds of batches!
I used 1 lb of finely ground himalayan salt in the actual batter and the bigger coarse salt on top for decoration.

They look absolutely beautiful and are hard. They were sweating at first as I read that they would. I left them out for a week to cure, but then I read elsewhere that they should be wrapped in plastic so they won't sweat (they have stopped sweating since wrapped).

It has been exactly 2 weeks since I made them cold process (the last week having been wrapped in plastic) and here are my actual questions:
1. Do they need to be wrapped?
2. How long do they need to cure for (wrapped or unwrapped)?

Thanks so much!
Tara

You cannot sub an oil or butter with another unless you run it through a lye calculator again.
Different oils and butters have different SAP values. Subbing one oil for another without recalculating could make the soap lye heavy, harsh and unsafe to use on the skin.

Castor Oil 0.5oz. 3.08%
Coconut Oil 5.25oz. 32.31%
Olive Oil 10.5oz. 64.62%
Total Weight 16.25ozs.
For this size batch, you would need 4-6 ozs. of water and 2.28 ozs. of lye for about 7% superfat.
2.4 ozs. of lye would make this soap superfatted at only 2%. 2% superfat is not enough to make this soap nice and mild.

Here is the revised recipe without castor and using coconut oil instead.
Coconut Oil 5.75 35.38
Olive Oil 10.5 64.62
Total Weight 16.25

For this size batch, you would need 4-6 ozs. of water and 2.31 ozs. of lye for about a 7% superfat.
at 2.4 ozs. of lye, that would make this batch only 3% superfatted. 3% superfat is not enough to make this soap mild.

I don't go above 20% coconut in my regular batches. For my high coconut soaps, I superfat at 20% with the addition of 50% salt.

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

Thank you for taking the time to re calculate the recipe for me! So assuming I do this correctly, do salt bars need a shorter cure time and do they need to be wrapped? The Everything soap making book says they are good after a week and doesn't mention anything about wrapping but it seems that everyone has different advice

Do you recommend I rebatch?

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

Yes, I do use individual molds. I live in NJ, so sometimes its 90 degrees and sometimes its 30, right now its around 65. I did buy the phenolphthalein drops as a precaution, I don't want to hurt anyone! If this soap ends up being lye heavy, can I rebatch this? Sorry for all the questions, I'm new.

_________________
Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

So it's been a month since I made the salt bars and figured I'd try it out. My skin feels nice and smells nice but I had to work pretty hard to get a lather. Is this just the way salt bars are or is there a way for me to add more oil to this for a better lather? Also, since there is already salt in the bar, will it be too hard to re-mix? Do I heat this up and add more oil?

Salt bars won't give you much lather, not many bubbles as it's more creamy.

_________________
Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

_________________
Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.