Ack! My bath salts are melting!

[Katie's Creations]

I use dendritic salts to mix the EO in first, then add this to dead sea salt, himilayan pink salt and epsom salts.

The salts smell and look beautiful for a month or so then have melted into a slushy mess. I have had to add them to my personal jars of bath salts as I would certainly not sell that.

One thought I had was baking soda or tapioca starch? Thoughts?

I do not believe it is the essential oils as I use high quality oils and used oils from two different suppliers and they melted both times.

I would really appreciate the help in this.

Thanks all!

 

[carebear]

Humidity. Are you storing in an air tight container?

 

[Tabitha]

I had this issue, they were literally standing in liquid after they sat for a month. I phoned my salt supplier & had a long talk. I was told to keep the lid on at all times. I was leaving them out to dry for a couple days & was told this drew moisture out of the air and into the salt. Ever since then I take the lid of my salt very quickly fill my jar, add fragrance, pop the lip back on & shake. Exposure to the air is only seconds & I have not had wet bath salts again. They also told me the higher certain mineral contents were in the salt, the wetter they would get. I can't give you all the chemistry behind it, but this limited air exposure has worked perfect for my salts which are: dendritic, dead sea, himilayan pink salt and epsom like yours.

 

[Katie's Creations]

Thanks Tabitha, I'll give it a try. I thought I was being fairly quick about getting them into my containers but maybe I took too long. The first batch of salts I made never did this, but the last batch turned very ugly.

I also found the salts in by glass jars seemed to fair better than those in my plastic rectangle tubes. I wonder why this is.

 

[Tabitha]

Mybe the tubes are not air tight.

I use plastic jars w/ screw caps and glass vials w/ corks and they do fine now that I know to not let them air out for a couple days before I pack.

 

[Katie's Creations]

Yeah, you could be right since they are just plastic caps on top. I may just stick with the glass jars now or see if I can find vials with corks. Those sound attractive. Thanks for the help!

 

[HomemadeBathGoodies]

Do you let the salts air-out for a few hours or not? Or do u package them right after making? Thanx!

 

[Tabitha]

Not- that is when they draw moisture out of the air, which you don't want them to do because that causes condensation within the container later.

 

[paillo]

i wonder if the dead sea salts have something to do with it. this summer our central air gave up the ghost, and after a few hot, humid days i discovered a puddle of water under my dead sea salts -- they had practically melted!

good suggestions, tabitha, gonna try your method.

 

[soapbuddy]

Dead sea salt has moisture in it, which can make the bath salts weep over time.

 

[Sandra Ramirez]

Ahhhhhh. 2 great possible issues....dead sea salt moisture and my attempt at "drying" backfires and draws in moisture ( I live on a lake in Louisiana, the humidity capital of the universe...pant, pant, swea, sweat !)
Thanks group !

 

[Soaperella]

Can anyone explain what I’m currently stumped and mystified by with my bath salts, and if they can be saved... I made a large batch the other day and when I was done mixing them up I put them in the oven to dry out, this is something I have always done and it always worked great. This time however, the whole pan melted so completely I was positive I was sent sugar by mistake! I tried to cool it down, and wound up just chopping it up into gooey bits that I left out (i know better now, thank you) to air dry. Tonight I ran it all through my food processor and the feel was still a bit moist but in a weird, hard to explain way. I added in more dentric salt, modified tapioca starch, magnesium flakes, and sea salt. All plain-no oil, scent, color, etc. have I been putting lipstick on a pig? Any thoughts on other uses for a huge batch of this if Balt salts is out? I know that was a lot, my apologies. I’m so grateful there are people smarter than me out there willing to lend a hand! Thanks

 

[shunt2011]

Can anyone explain what I’m currently stumped and mystified by with my bath salts, and if they can be saved... I made a large batch the other day and when I was done mixing them up I put them in the oven to dry out, this is something I have always done and it always worked great. This time however, the whole pan melted so completely I was positive I was sent sugar by mistake! I tried to cool it down, and wound up just chopping it up into gooey bits that I left out (i know better now, thank you) to air dry. Tonight I ran it all through my food processor and the feel was still a bit moist but in a weird, hard to explain way. I added in more dentric salt, modified tapioca starch, magnesium flakes, and sea salt. All plain-no oil, scent, color, etc. have I been putting lipstick on a pig? Any thoughts on other uses for a huge batch of this if Balt salts is out? I know that was a lot, my apologies. I’m so grateful there are people smarter than me out there willing to lend a hand! Thanks

This post is from 2011. You would do much better to start a new thread and if there's information needed from this one to link to it. None of the other posters have been here in years.