Crumbly brittle salt bar

[Rahmi]

Hi all, I'm new to the forum and have been making soap for few months now.

Yesterday I made salt bars, and waited too long that they broke and crumbled when I cut them. Half of them I've put in individual molds, and they came out looking fine.

But how about my crumbly ones? Would they firm up over time?

My recipe was
30 percent palm oil
70 percent coconut oil
80 percent salt
With water discount
Turmeric and indigo leaf as colorant

Including the Pic for analysis. Thanks!

 

[Dawni]

Those look great actually. I like using those two colorants in my soap

The consensus is to leave salt bars curing for a long time. I've read someone cures em for 6mos minimum but a one year old (and more) salt bar is awesome.

That being said, your crumbly ones will be better after some time. I had the same problem once when I forgot to cut brine soap at the right time. I left them n came back to clean em with a blade after some days and they're ok now.

Not sure if it's the same for salt bars as I've never made em. I'm sure other more experienced soapers will chime in and comment on the crumbliness n your recipe.

 

[shunt2011]

Salt bars need to be cut relatively soon. If I make mine in a loaf I cut at about 3 hours. The longer they sit the more likely they will crumble. And I think more so with palm in them with the coconut. My loaf is still pretty warm to the touch when I cut it. I wear gloves as it's still saponifying. Individual molds I leave in for 24 hours and then cover them completely as they are more prone to getting thick ash.

I'm one who cures my salt soaps at least 6 months generally. I actually prefer them at a year or more. I do love salt soap.

 

[Rahmi]

Thanks! Somehow that long cure time slipped my mind. I was making this for immediate use in a few months. I hope they'll be okay after six months.

 

[cmzaha]

I will add in that palm is not good in salt bars. Palm on it's own will add nothing to the lather and the salt, as we all know, kills lather. Give those bars a year or two aging and they should be fine. A nice salt bar recipe, in my opinion, is 85% Coconut/Palm Kernel Split (not Palm Oil),
10% Castor and 5% liquid oil such as SAO or Sunflower Oil, or 5% Shea Butter. Sweet Almond is my favorite to add because on it's own it will lather. You do not want to use a hard butter such as Cocoa Butter. I give all my Salt bars a year to age. With a long cure yours will probably lather.

The crumbling issue is waiting to long to cut, simple as that and if you use a wire cutter the bottom edge is much more likely to crumble. I have to de-mold and cut my salt bars while they are still quite warm almost hot to the touch.

 

[earlene]

I made some salt bars that were a bit crumbly when I cut them (link). (I prefer not to cut, rather use individual molds, for this reason but I was traveling and had only limited supplies with me on my road trip.) I made the Salt Flats soap on Aug. 18, 2018 so it is still not yet a year old even now. I cut the soap while it was still warm, but longer than originally planned because I fell asleep. The crumbliness wasn't terribly bad, so I just wrapped each bar loosely in plain newsprint paper (no ink) and kept them wrapped for the remainder of my roadtrip and beyond. So they didn't actually get as much air circulation as my curing soaps usually do, but I didn't want salty crumbles all over my car, etc. so I just left if that way until I tested a bar this past March.

At 7 months (in March) when I tested the soap, it was not crumbly once I started using it for hand-washing. I let it dry out and it's been sitting in the open air since, and there is no evidence of crumbliness now either. But I still feel that it is too drying to my skin, although I do believe my skin recovered faster this time, probably due to the high summer humidity of July. I will continue waiting for longer cure to see if this changes for me and my skin. I prefer soap that leaves my skin feeling as well nourished and moisturized as before washing.

The recipe at the time (due to travel & ingredients on hand) was 82% CO, 18% HO Safflower, only 22% salt because that is all I had harvested from the Bonneville Salt Flats. I wanted to try self-harvested natural salt and that's all I had. Perhaps I will try again with a 1:1 salt to oils ratio in the future when I have another chance to harvest again and have the other necessary ingredients. In fact, I'd very much like to do this in future just to try it out to compare to other salt soaps I've made with the 1:1 salt to oils ratio.

Edit: I cut with a pastry cutter and not wire (I don't travel with a wire soap cutter usually anyway.)

Also there is a photo of the lather in March (at 7 months) at this link:
https://www.soapmakingforum.com/media/bonneville-salt-flats-soap-lather.2090/full

 

[Rahmi]

I will add in that palm is not good in salt bars. Palm on it's own will add nothing to the lather and the salt, as we all know, kills lather. Give those bars a year or two aging and they should be fine. A nice salt bar recipe, in my opinion, is 85% Coconut/Palm Kernel Split (not Palm Oil),
10% Castor and 5% liquid oil such as SAO or Sunflower Oil, or 5% Shea Butter.

Oh no, I didn't think about palm that way. I do hope they will lather.

I did have some sunflower oil on hand, but decided to take that off since it's supposed to have only six months shelf life? But yours was good after a year? Could that be sure to the salt?

Thanks so much for all the replies!

Earlene, that lather looks so good!

 

[shunt2011]

@Rahmi - We use High Oleic Sunflower, it has a much longer shelf life than regular sunflower. Sunflower makes a lovely soap. And as cmzaha stated palm will add nothing to a salt soap.

 

[earlene]

Oh no, I didn't think about palm that way. I do hope they will lather.

I did have some sunflower oil on hand, but decided to take that off since it's supposed to have only six months shelf life? But yours was good after a year? Could that be sure to the salt?

Thanks so much for all the replies!

Earlene, that lather looks so good!

HO safflower is what I used, which means High Oleic. HO Safflower has a much much lower linoleic value than regular Safflower, which makes it more shelf-stable. It also has a higher oleic content, which helps make harder soap over the end of cure. Same is true for the difference between HO sunflower and regular sunflower oil. Take a look at the fatty acid profiles of the regular vs the High Oleic versions in your lye calculator and you'll see what I mean.

 

[IngridK]

I mold mine in individual molds... I just cannot get the timing right for a cut bar. I find that covering them with a silicone sheet helps keep the heat in for a nice gel and limits soda ash. Anything that gets air during the first week ashes like crazy and I am discounting 10-15% so it is not an excess lye issue.

 

[cmzaha]

Oh no, I didn't think about palm that way. I do hope they will lather.

I did have some sunflower oil on hand, but decided to take that off since it's supposed to have only six months shelf life? But yours was good after a year? Could that be sure to the salt?

Thanks so much for all the replies!

Earlene, that lather looks so good!

Salt is used for curing meats, fish, etc so I am sure your regular Sunflower Oil would have been fine.

 

[Rahmi]

After three weeks I'm relived and happy to say that the bars do have lather! Large bubbles, although a bit thin, not dense. I'm hoping it'll get better. The indigo leaf green color has faded a lot, while the turmeric color is now just plain white! Now they look like a mild green & white bars.

They do sweat a copious amount of salt water. I suppose it's the type of salt I used? And I thought it was the right one. A natural mineral rock salt.

 

[IngridK]

I have had decent lather off my bars 10 days after batching... Despite the fact that I always test with PH strips and Phenolphthalein but I make a point of using end cuts two weeks after batching to make sure it is not irritating.

 

[scrubadubdub]

I made salt bars a couple weeks ago for the first time using individual molds and they came out awesome. I really think that the grain of the salt has a lot to do with whether the bar is crumbly or not. I ordered fine grain Himalayan pink salt and they accidentally sent me extra fine instead. I was hesitant to use it but they gave me a refund and let me keep it so I used it and am happy I did. My salt bars came out PERFECTLY. Not one crumble. They held their shape very nicely and have an amazing shine to them! Not sure if it was the mold I used, but it got me wanting to buy more of the molds and make more salt bars.