Sea Salt Soap

I can’t remember where I first saw Sea Salt Soap, but I was immediately intrigued. It was described as a very heavy soap that turned into a “smooth rock” that was lightly exfoliating and left your skin moisturized enough that you didn’t have to use lotion after a shower. It said that it wasn’t a lathering soap due to the high content of salt, but still – cool right!  So I went out looking for a recipe.

I only found a few recipes, but they were similar in two ways.  They all had a very high amount of coconut oil, and a whole lot of salt!  I used this recipe…

Base Ingredients	Ounces
Coconut Oil	17.78 oz.
Castor Oil	2.54 oz.
Grapeseed Oil	5.08 oz.
Distilled Water	9.67 oz.
Lye	3.90 oz.
Sea Salt – Fine	20.32 oz.

Here’s how it turned out…

I love the way the soap looked, but was disappointed at how it set up.  It was crumbly around the edges and a couple of bars actually broke in half as I was cutting them.  After a few days they did harden up and as long as you are on the gentle side, they didn’t crumble. 

Here’s the big problem though…  The soap turned into a mass of what felt more like wax with salt in it than soap. It had no slip and even though I didn’t expect suds, it didn’t work as a soap at all. Through more research, I found out that the problem was probably due to the fact that I used Dead Sea Salt. I love dead sea salt for other things, but apparently it should not be used for salt bars. If the information I read on the Internet is correct, its because Dead Sea Salt has a higher concentration of minerals that will prevent the soap from setting up correctly.

While that batch was a total loss, I still am intrigued with this soap and wanted to give it another shot - so, here is my second attempt at making sea salt soap.  I am going to use the same recipe as before, however this time I am using fine sea salt.

Sea Salt – Part II

I knew that the difference in salt would make a difference, but it was an even bigger difference than I expected – this time having much better results. 

First of all - mineral content aside, 20 ounces of fine sea salt has a totally different volume than 20 ounces of dead sea salt.  It made for a much better consistency and I’m more confident that this will be a usable bar this time!

After I mixed the lye solution, I weighed the Oils in a large pyrex measuring bowl on a digital scale.  A blue silicone spatula is in the bowl.  I LOVE that tool.

 I melt my oils by putting the pyrex bowl into a pan of water that I put on the stove.  As my oils are melting, I am also cooling the lye. I put cold water in a plastic tub and place the pyrex bowl that contains the lye/water solution in to cool.

 

As my oils were melting and my lye was cooling, I prepared the rest of my ingredients by weighing the salt and lining my mold.  My soap is shown here at light trace. At this point I had already added in my essential oil blend. 

Sea Kelp was not a part of the original recipe, but I thought it would be a perfect additive since it was from the sea!  It has a funky sea smell to it that goes along very well with the essential oil blend that I used.  It also adds a nice sandy brown color that reminds me of the beach.

After I mixed in the salt, I took some of my soap mixture from the bowl and put it into a small glass dish with the kelp to premix it.  This is important because I didn’t want to have chunks of kelp – I wanted it evenly distributed.

This is the pre-mixed kelp being stirred into the soap. 

 

This is the soap after I poured it into the mold. It was the consistency of runny applesauce, unlike the first time I tried this with dead sea salt when it was more like dry and crumbly mashed potatoes.

Soap wrapped in several towels where it will sit undisturbed for 12 hours.

Results

I am so glad that I tried this again, because I really like these bars! Here is the final result.  Six large bath size bars, and 12 trial size bars. (Total mold time - 15 hours)

 This is a closeup of one of the bars. I love the color that the Kelp turned the soap, and love the earthy ocean smell.

 This is what I found to be a little shocking.  I have heard that since this has such a high salt content that its not a lathering bar (Although I have also heard some people say that their salt bars did have suds) but this bar has great lather and didn’t feel like sandpaper as I kind of expected. (It of course is not ready to be used and needs to sit for a few weeks, but I had to try it!)

The large bath size bars didn’t cut as well as the small trial size bars. This one actually cracked.  Other than this bar, I expect the others to harden up nicely.  

I would call this batch a success!  I love the texture, the color, the scent and the suds!  I can’t wait to use it in a couple of weeks to see what it does for my skin!