Soap Challenge – Week 8 Link-Up
Before I talk about salt bars, I want to be sure that everyone who signed up for the soap swap received their swap partner info last week. There were over 50 people involved, so the chances of me making a mistake are well within the realm of possibility. LOL! If you DIDN’T get an email from me with your partner’s info, please let me know ASAP.
Now – this week’s Soap Challenge was to formulate a salt bar. I first heard about salt bars in 2005, and I think they have been in and out of popularity ever since! I have dabbled with making salt bars before, but never really landed on a recipe that I truly loved.
So this week, I made three completely different recipes, hoping to find at least one that I could actually fall in love with. I think I may have two! So far, I’ve only tested them on my hands. The true test for me will be to try each one in the shower and make sure the lather doesn’t disappear too quickly.
But until then, here are the results of my lather and skin feel testing so far:
I’m so curious about what you all came up with for your salt bar recipes! Let the sharing begin!!
Bloggers: Create a post about your salt bar experiment – with photos of course! Try to include as much recipe information as you feel comfortable sharing. Don’t forget to include the scent you used! Please include a link back to my blog in your post (either the home page, or this post should work nicely!).
Facebook business page photos: Upload your photo(s) into a photo album, and write a descriptive caption on the photo you are linking up to this post – including as much recipe information as you feel comfortable sharing, as well as the scent you used. To link the photo, click on it, then copy and paste the URL into the “blog post URL” blank at the top. In the next step, it will show your photo, and you will need to select it. (If you press the “crop” button instead, you can adjust what the thumbnail of your photo will look like.)
YouTubers: You can create a link to a YouTube video of your soap! There will be a little frog icon instead of a thumbnail photo of the soap, but anyone who clicks on your link will be able to see your video. Starting on your video page, click the “share” button and copy the URL. You can use this URL for the “blog post URL” blank. Then in the next step, ignore all the tiny blue boxes and click the “direct image URL” tab across the top and paste the URL of your youtube video in the blank again and hit the “submit query” button.
Uploading a photo from your computer: If you don’t have a blog or business page on facebook or a youtube video, you can still upload a photo from your computer. Just put n/a in the “blog post URL” blank and go to the next step. It will give you an error message, but it will still work! Just click the tab across the top that says “upload from computer” and you will be able to browse your files and upload a photo. I will remove the dead link ASAP.
This week’s link-up will remain open until next Saturday!
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all the 3 soaps have a great lather. And the colors are lovely.
The one with beer and salt is interesting.
Even with 100% coco, mine do not lather like that.
Thought I add to much salt in the formula. I definitely will lower the % of salt for the challenge. I do it today . yes I’m still late.
Looking good everybody! Amy, I’ve learned so much from these challenges. Thanks to you! This one was the most educational though.
They are all nice, Amy. Thank you again for this challenge, I have learnt really a lot !
Hi Amy – they all look great. This has been such a fun challenge! Thanks for all your hard work organizing it.
Three batches? Amy you are the best going above and beyond! Thank you!
Thank you for hosting the challenges…been meaning to do a salt bar for quite sometime & this is the motivation we need!
Thanks for your kind comments on my Monoi Salt Bar. I can’t wait to try your beer salt bar!
Well, I’m a couple weeks behind but finally made one yesterday. 45% coconut oil, 55% other oils including avocado, castor, shea butter, rice bran. 1:1 ratio salts/oils, 10% superfat. I made it in a silicone loaf pan but did not put in oven, wrapped in towels instead. 6 hours later, still soft. 18 hours later, still soft but took out of pan. It reminds me of very thick salt scrub!! tried to cut some, but way too soft for that. I used half fine sea salt, half “orsa salt” for contrast, Pineapple/Cilantro FO from BB. It traced fine and there is no seeping. So, please help, what happened to the brick hard salt bar I was expecting 6 hours from pouring? Any suggestions? At this rate maybe I can cut it next week. Thanks so much!!
@Kathy – I wish I knew what was going on with your soap!!! I haven’t heard of orsa salt. Could that possibly be it??? How is it looking now?
Hi Amy,
I cut it yesterday with a wire cheese cutter. It was still soft but hardening this morning. It looks nice and I got 6 bars cut that don’t have crumbles so that’s good I guess! Maybe 1:1 ratio is too much salt. Here is info about orsa salt, which comes from an underground ancient sea bed in Utah:
http://blog.realsalt.com/2010/07/where-does-real-salt-come-from/
It’s supposed to be similar to Pink Himalayan Sea Salt. I got it from our local Vitamin Cottage which is like Whole Foods except not so expensive. I will make a blog post on my soap when it’s hard enough to test for lather and moisture!
Hi all
Although I wasn’t able to participate in the challenge because I didn’t have all the ingredients on hand, I followed all your beautiful work. Hats Off ladies. I wanted to share with you my recent experience with salt bars. I have to note that, I have never done a salt bar or used one, so it was all research for me. I made a batch of salt bars (80% coconut, 10% Olive Oil, 5% Shea butter, 5% Castor. To this I added 100% of oil weight sodium chloride on trace. To my surprise, I had a lot of time to work so i split the batter into 2, colored one half with black oxide and the other one with TD and replicated the design Karen (soaping 101) did. The leather is so creamy and left my hand feeling awesome. I am trying today another experiment with salt bars. I went for 80% coconut, 10% Rice Bran, 10% Castor (I guess with the high level of coconut I dont need to worry about a soft bar). To the lye soltion i added honey (wanted to experiment if with the increased % ofcastor oil, if it would increase the bubbles.
BOY ! that almost turned soap in the pot ( I should have thined the honey and added the syrup to oils when they cooled down. I had to work so fast. I split it in 2, colored one half and spooned layers.
With both experiments, I used individual silicon molds and regular CP.
Well I will unmold today’s experiment tomorrow and will let you know if more I got more bubbles or not 🙂
Oh my God ! sorry guys. I just realized that salt bars was part of last year’s challenge 🙁 So sorry for that. Anyways just in case anyone is searching the blog for info, I wanted to report on adding honey and upping the castor oil experiment as promised. Short story: not worth the hastle. Although I could see some bubbles, strangely it affected the leather.