Bars made with new mold get a D-

[Maythorn]

I made two bars on Saturday and poured them into my new silcone Crafters Choice mold. This was a hard recipe with some salt and milk.

1 The scent morphed from the goat milk. This such a crap shoot with scents. I wish there was clear information that certain scents can't handle milk.
2 The mold cavities are weird. They're shiny but if you rinse them it leaves stubborn water spots. Then just even dabbing at the spots with a soft sponge seems to mar them and then they're not as shiny. They scratch easy, too it looks like.
3 You can pull away the outsides from the soap but the inside edges where the two soaps are next to each other was impossible without poking the side of the soap with my finger and fingernail. Maybe I overfilled them right to the brim?

So far I just don't like these molds at all. I'll have to leave the soap in the molds as long (several days at least) and be just as careful unmolding them from the cavities as I was pulling the freezer paper away from new soap loaves I was doing and that I could at least do a little at a time. The only thing is these are a good shape. I truly think they're betters suited for melt and pour. Maybe a beeswax batch will do better and not fight being unmolded.

 

[RocknRoll]

What a disappointment! roblem: I recently had my own battles with a new mold. Maybe the more you use it and find out how to work with its quirks..it will get better for you? (or let us know if it really just DOES suck! :shock Thank you though for sharing with us your experience with them, i personally dont have any silicone molds but i have thought about purchasing them.

 

[Maythorn]

One bar broke in half too!:-o I am just not experienced enough to do salt bars yet. This only had 3 oz of salt to an 8 oz well-tried recipe on Youtube, not gelled just set out like the teacher did. Dang!

I better just do some small regular batches and leave the soaps in their cavities for about 4 days and leave a little bit of a brim by not filling them all the way. Mind you I'm doing only a tiny amount of water above twice the lye. So 2.25 oz of lye and I do about 4.55 and that's including the canned goat milk.

I'm so disappointed. Every time I go outside the lines I just ruin soap. I have a few scents I can trust with goat milk: OMH, Lavender, Rosemary, and Peppermint eos, Oregon Trails Jasmine Yin Hao, Buzzy Bumble Buttermilk Bath, Red Clover Tea and that's about hell-all as my father in law would say. Better never step beyond these unless one gets about 6 reviews saying it's okay.:sad:

 

[RocknRoll]

I have yet to make salt bars. I would like to but I dont know why I havent. I dont know enough about them to know whether you should/can gell them or not. I havent had any issues with FO's or EO's when using goats milk. Maybe I've just been lucky? Are you soaping kind of hot?

BTW, I've ruined batches too trying something new. But sometimes its worth the gamble because one of these days, a beautiful thing will happen, or a new technique will be discovered...you never know!

 

[Maythorn]

No soaping cool R & R. My chocolate soap I'm doing with beeswax will be hotter but no milk added.

It's not really that many scents that morph from goats and cows milk. Just enough to where sooner or later you'll run into one I guess. It's the weirdest thing like a stale, sad undertone that is unmistakeably there.

 

[new12soap]

maythorn, I am sorry if I missed it, but what mold are you using? are they individual silicone cavities? yes, those do get water spots pretty badly, but they won't hurt anything.

I make salt bars and I find the individual silicone molds are great for that because you don't have to worry about cutting the bars before they get too hard, but I use all coconut oil (15% sf) and coconut milk (IrishLass' recipe)

A lot of times an FO will mix badly with goat milk, but if you give it some time it may cure out and be fine.

If you feel that you are pretty comfortable with coloring inside the lines then I say go ahead and go outside the lines now! At the very least it is always a learning experience.

 

[Amybell]

I've found that popping the silicone mold in the freezer for about 10 minutes helps with unmolding. Mine has 12 square cavities. I've never made salt bars, but it's all I've used with the soap I have made.

 

[falldowngobump]

I pop mine in the freezer too. It makes a lot of difference with how the soap looks when it's unmolded. It seems to give a smoother look.

 

[Maythorn]

I know salt bars are hard and I love them but I can't seem to make any that don't break. I made the 85% coconut, 10% olive and 5% shea recipe on Youtube. I just give up at this point on salt bars.

My next batch is a regular one with goat milk and lavender eo and I will definitely be using the freezer just like I did with Milky Way cat molds I have. Thanks!

 

[LuvOurNewf]

BB has a 12 cavity silicone mold that work great for salt bars. I make them @ 92% CO, 8% Shea and salt content up to 80% of oil. They sit for a day or 2, flip em over pop em out.

I get most of my damage from being in too much of a hurry and pop em to hard.

 

[paillo]

BB has a 12 cavity silicone mold that work great for salt bars. I make them @ 92% CO, 8% Shea and salt content up to 80% of oil. They sit for a day or 2, flip em over pop em out.

I get most of my damage from being in too much of a hurry and pop em to hard.

That's the one I use too for my salt bars, love it, and it's a really inexpensive mold . I use mostly coconut, shea and castor and about 100 percent of salt to oils. Almost never have problems - unless, ahem, I added way too much green tea extract

 

[jeremmy]

have you tried doing salt bars without that liquid discount? I made 2 different batches (different recipes) and used extra water (around 3:1 water:lye)..they came out a bit dry looking around the edges, but didnt crumble. so i would think doing a 2:1 water:lye mixture would be too dry. i did 12oz salt ppo for both.

 

[Maythorn]

I tried with how much the recipe called for and it was a lot. 6.1 oz water in a 1 pd batch (too wet after 3 days). Then this time the same recipe with a water discount. I didn't try the freezer either time.

I prefer Milky Way molds. They're cheaper and you can see through them as to how wet your soaps still looks. But I don't think I can return these molds so I'll just make the best of them. I believe with beeswax added it'll be better. They'll always look a little different shaped from my standard loaf bars but not that much.

 

[paillo]

I stopped using Milky Way molds because I got tired of oiling them. Regular veg oil or Pam didn't seem to be enough, so I was mixing with a little mineral oil and paintbrushing it on - but I also didn't like incorporating any mineral oil in my soap. Even freezing them I had too much damage unmolding anything ornate. The Brambleberry silicone mold with 12 squares is only $12 bucks, I think. I've never looked back