Pink Himalayan salt save

[Nanette]

Wow! my salt was fine also....

 

[Mobjack Bay]

After getting a nice piece of brine soap to test from @geniash, I decided I would like to make my own brine soap. I also discovered that I still have some pink salt that I would like to use up. Dissolving and then recrystallizing the salt, which is what I described above, does not ensure 100% that there are no sharp mineral particles left as contaminants in the salt. When I made my salt powder using the method I described above, I did not see any residue in the pan after I dissolved the salt, but I did not filter the brine, which means I can’t be certain everything dissolved. A salt bar I made from the powdery salt described above doesn’t feel scratchy to me, but others may be more sensitive, or the scratchy bits could be very dilute and maybe I just haven’t encountered one yet. To be ultra safe, here’s my refined method for saving myself and others from any scratchiness in soap due to using pink Himilayan salt.

For this run, I dissolved 50g of salt in distilled water and then passed it through a piece of 30 um mesh Nitex screen cloth I borrowed from my lab. For comparison purposes, most of the micas I use are in the 20-60 um size range. A geologist would classify these micas as silt size, rather than clay, which is classified as < 4um according to something called the Wentworth scale. What I ended up with in the jar is a mixture of brine and particles < 30 um in size. It looks like most of the color is associated with particles. The screen cloth retained 0.09g (still damp) of pink, dark and clear minerals that wouldn’t dissolve. According to the web, a coffee filter has a pore size of 20 um, so that should work if you want to try this and don’t have a piece of Nitex laying around . I wasn’t thinking and used way too much water for a brine solution, so I will need to let it evaporate before I make the soap.

The first photo shows the jar with the brine right after I made it, as well as the residue retained by the screen cloth. The second photo shows the brine after about 2 hours of sitting undisturbed. You should be able to see the pink particles that have settled to the bottom and how much clearer the overlying water is. The third photo is a close up of the residue from the screen. The particles retained on the screen are still fairly small, but they do look like they could be scratchy. If I decide make salt powder again, I will filter the brine water first and then recrystallize the salt.

 

[cmzaha]

Above is what my brine looked like when I have dissolved chunks of Himalayan salt for brine. The chunks I am talking about were a couple of large Himalayan salt candle holders I got tired of so I dissolved them into a brine. I siphoned off the top to use then strained the remaining through a coffee filter, just to get as much of the brine as I could.

 

[Mobjack Bay]

@cmzaha thanks for the confirmation on the coffee filter working!

 

[cmzaha]

@mobjack, it works but I am sure your screen works much better. From what I remember I used more than one coffee filter and it was rather slow draining.

 

[ahmed_khan00]

My newbie self bought some medium grind Pink Himalayan Salt before I read all the warnings about how sharp/scratchy it is in soap. I saved it by dissolving it in distilled water and then drying it. I heated it on the stove until it was almost dry and then finished it in the oven. My last step was to sieve it through a fine sieve. If you try this, make sure you completely dissolved the salt before you start heating the brine on the stove. Once the water starts to evaporate, trying to get any remaining chunks to dissolve is a losing battle.

The resulting salt is powdery fine and light pink in color:

View attachment 39871

nice i also use himalayan salt for cooking .. purchased from smsalt.com