Salt Soap

by Becky Wiseley
(Maryland)

Cathy I wanted to make your salt bar, but I didn't have that much grapeseed oil and all I had was sulfated castor oil (more on that later) so I used another one of your recipes that had less castor (45gr), but also olive (360gr) and palm (225gr) and coconut(270g).

Well it came out a crumbly mess. I have three questions.

1) Do you really use 576gr of salt for such a small batch of soap? It seemed like a lot.

2) Is the grapeseed and castor in the original recipe intended to keep the soap softer than the brick I made with the addition of palm an olive oils?

3) And finally, I bought sulfated castor oil..it always act a bit strange in a recipe which is why I hesitated to use your original salt soap recipe to begin with, but impatient as I am I went ahead with it...does it work like original castor or should I switch back to the other.

Oh thank you for all of your patience and understanding.

Answer:

Let's start with question 3...sulphated castor oil is water dispersible and definitely not the same as regular castor oil when it comes to making handmade soap. You will want to switch back to using regular castor oil.

Question 1...I know that it seems like a lot of salt but it is how much is used in the soap.

Question 2...The castor oil in the recipe is to boost the bubbles in the salt bar. The salt in the bar changes the lather and it can be thin without a lot of coconut oil and some castor oil (regular castor...not sulphated). The grapeseed could easily be replaced with a different soft oil. Olive, sweet almond, apricot kernal, avocado, etc. Really any conditioning soft oil. The recipe will have to be run through a lye calculator if you make any changes to the oils.

The salt bar also has a high superfat which keeps it moisturizing.

The bar does tend to be very hard and can be crumbly if you are not careful to cut it as soon as it is possible to handle the soap. It may still feel quite warm when you cut it.

Cathy