Salt Soap Bar
by Heather
(Colorado Springs)
I tried to do your Salt Soap Bar recipe. I've been making soap for a while now...no problems. But this recipe has me stumped.
I made it exactly as yours only corrected my numbers for a 3 lb recipe. As I generally do with yours.(which I tripled checked)
The process went off fine. I checked on my soap after 12hrs to see if it was ready to remove from the mold as you suggested. It completely wasn't. Still very very soft. After about 20hrs I managed to remove it from the mold.
It was still soft but held it's shape. Cutting on the other hand turned to mush. After about 40hrs it's still quite mushy and never cut as lovely as your soap looks.
Any suggestions as to what might have happened? I've never had my soap so mushy before.
Answer:Oh Dear! I'm sorry to hear that Heather...It's just so disappointing when a batch fails on you!!
Since this recipe is 70% coconut oil, it should NOT have gone mushy at all....in fact, it goes really hard, really fast.
Even though you've checked your amounts, I can only guess that somewhere along the line, the amount of lye or water used was incorrect. Perhaps an error was made in the calculations or in the measuring?
I double checked my recipe that I have posted online and the amounts are correct there.
I'll run you through the process of calculating a salt soap recipe.
The amount of oils needed for a salt soap are calculated at 80% of that needed for a regular batch and the salt is 80% of that amount.
It's a little confusing to explain...
A regular batch of soap for my molds has 900 grams of oils. So....
900 grams x 80% = 720 grams of oil needed.
720 grams x 80% = 576 grams of sea salt needed.
If your mold usually requires 3 lbs (or 48 ounces) of oils, then...
48 oz. x 80% = 38.4 oz. of oils needed.
38.4 oz. x 80% = 30.72 oz of sea salt needed.
Your recipe should read as below...
Coconut oil - 26.88 oz.
Castor oil - 3.84 oz.
Grapeseed oil - 7.68 oz.
Water - 12.67 oz.
Lye - 5.45 oz.
Sea salt - 30.72 oz.
Water as a % of oils = 33
Superfat/Discount = 15%
Hopefully this will help find what went wrong.
Other than that, I honestly don't know what it could be.
Good luck :)
Cathy