Salt bars are a very, very interesting concept. Even though they have a lot of salt in them, after the first few uses they lose their scrubby quality and change to a smooth stone of soap with a low lotion-like lather or no lather at all. The salt inhibits the lather, so to make a salt bar that lathers you have to go heavy on the coconut oil. I've read that you can break the rule of no more than 30% coconut IF you superfat very high (which is another rule broken!).
I tried a salt bar once (pretty early into my soap making obsession) and hated it. Haha! It felt like washing with a brick! The bar was super hard and had no lather at all. None. Foolishly I wrote it off and even threw it away *sad face*... I wish now that I had saved it to try again given that I know more of what to expect from a salt bar. This bar was touted to have lots of cocoa butter in it. I don't know what "lots" really means, the recommended max of 10%? More than that? Either way, I knew I didn't want to use cocoa butter in my experiment since I didn't care for it in the soap I bought.
There is another camp of people who use a regular recipe and don't bother with the mostly or all coconut oil. I knew I wanted to go heavy on the coconut because I actually do like lather. Even if it's low or creamy! Just something that makes it feel like I'm being pampered a little. I decided on 90% coconut oil, 10% shea butter. I would have added 5% castor oil too, but I'm fresh out! I superfatted to 20%.
Salt bars and coconut oil bars are known to set up fast, so fast you have to cut them a few hours after pouring or they will be too hard and crumbly. I recently got a 12 bar round silicone mold from Bramble Berry and have only used it once to make a giant shampoo bar. I love round bars of soap, they fit in the hand so well and there are no pesky corners. I liked the idea of not having to cut these. Not worrying about when it would be just the right time. I didn't want to risk ruining them!
Going with a sea salt theme I chose to use coral reef blue by TKB trading, and Beach Type, a Bobbie Brown dupe by Wholesale Supplies Plus. I'll just say, I was a little nervous at this point. This fragrance had many comments about it accelerating and I've never used salt before and OH almost forgot, I used coconut milk as the liquid. Having to keep that cool and the oils a little hotter than they would be if I were using liquid oils, plus an accelerating fragrance, plus salt... see why I was nervous?!
As you can see this isn't a 12 bar mold. Well it is but I cut it in half! I don't like a huge mold if I'm only going to use a few cavities. It's cumbersome and doesn't fit in the fridge or freezer. I planned this recipe out to fill 4 cavities with a little spill over into a 5th possible.
I really wish I had gotten a picture of the soap after I added the fragrance. I colored and fragranced at a thin trace in case things sped up. I am pretty sure I got ricing for the first time ever! When I poured the fragrance in and stirred with the spatula the soap suddenly looked like curdled milk! It was actually really cool. Luckily I was at a thin trace so I just stick blended it until it was smooth again, and it worked fine after that. I wanted it at a thick trace so the salt wouldn't fall to the bottom of the soap bar when I poured them. Below is right before adding the salt.
Adding the salt! This is starting to feel a lot like baking...
Mixing it in.
All the salt fully mixed in! I let it sit around for a bit to see if the salt was actually suspended before putting this in the mold.
Molded up. As you can see it made more like 6 bars! The 6th is a little short. I neglected to think about the salt increasing the volume of the soap. This wasn't a big deal for me since I had spare cavities, but if you are doing this in a log mold, make a smaller amount than normal so you don't end up spilling over or wasting soap!
I pressed waxed paper into the tops to flatten them and put these in the fridge. I didn't think they would need the freezer (even with the coconut milk) because they are in small individual molds which stay cooler. I only left them in the fridge for an hour then brought them out and peeled off the waxed paper.
Ok so it's not that I didn't believe that coconut oil salt bars would be ready to cut in a couple hours, I do! But I was still amazed that I could unmold these just 2 hours after making them. I laughed at how solid they already were, so cool!
They have a few little air pockets from being glopped in so thickly. I did bang them on the counter a few times to settle the soap, but it didn't work 100%. Salt bars tend to look a little rustic though, so the bubbles don't really matter. While these are really solid, they have a waxy texture to them that reminds me they aren't done yet!
Salt bars need as much cure time as other soaps even though they are rock hard and seem ready to use right away. If anything I've read they benefit from a longer cure. I do feel like all soap benefits from a 6-8 week cure. I know 4 weeks is acceptable, but I have tried the same soap at 4 weeks and then at 8 weeks, it was worlds nicer at 8 weeks. I've tested this with both gelled and ungelled soaps. I'm going to try the stumpy one of these at 6 weeks and then try to wait as long as possible on the others. It's hard to set a soap aside for months and months, but if it's amazing after that long, it's worth it.
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