salt bar - what kinds of salt can and can't be used?

[Chefmom]

I have made a couple of salt bars now and I use fine sea salt that I buy at a bulk grocery store run by the local Amish. I have also used canning salt. It is found in the grocery store in the boxes on the bottom shelf with the Kosher salt etc. It's basic fine grain table salt with no additives, iodine etc. Already a nice fine texture. It does clump in my salt pottery dish, but breaks up easily with a spoon.

 

[cmzaha]

My favorite salt bar recipe is 90% coconut oil, 10% castor 18% superfat. It gives a beautiful thick lather after 4 wks and just keeps getting better. Thought I would give in and share...:-o I have been playing with some different combos and they are not as nice as this simple recipe, in fact for the first time in several yrs of making salt bars I actually dumped some in the trash and went back to my tried and true. I use up to 120% fine salt

 

[Obsidian]

I use pretty much any salt I have on hand. Usually its canning salt but I've also used 100% kosher and regular table salt with iodine. I'm switching to cheap sea salt for the mineral content though. I've used pink sea salt and I don't like it much, not pink enough to make pretty soap but pink enough to muddy up the bars.

 

[Michele50]

If you have really course grain salt you could try soleseife (search on here there's a fairly extensive thread about it) it involves dissolving your salt into the water so the big grains wouldn't be an issue. It's one of my favourite soaps to make.

I made some Soleseife soap about a year into beginning making our own soap. I don't know why this forum didn't pop up in my searches for info on how-to-make; it would have saved time and I didn't find much about it on the web at the time. I became interested in German Brine soap because I knew salt helped acne and I wanted to see if it would help as an additive to CP soap. I was surprised to find there was a soap made from a brine.....lol.....like I brine my Thanksgiving turkey before roasting it.

Literally hours after washing my face it purged, which I would have expected if I were one to have issues with acne (lol). I guess I had a few pimples under the skin that were lying dormant . I washed one area of my lower arm near my wrist (one arm only) and it had a few small ones pop up also. Rarely do I ever have pimples but when I do they are deep and painful. It's nice to know that if I "were" one who suffered from acne on a regular basis that with regular use Soleseife would possibly keep bad breakouts at bay.

I ground my Pink Himalayan Sea Salt to a powder and then dissolved in hot water and there was no sediment. I had one container of water for my lye to dissolve and one for my salt and then combined them once things cooled to my desired temp. I love how hard and smooth these were; the only thing I didn't like was that I made such a small amount. Note to self: make more sooooon.

 

[shunt2011]

I made some Soleseife soap about a year into beginning making our own soap. I don't know why this forum didn't pop up in my searches for info on how-to-make; it would have saved time and I didn't find much about it on the web at the time. I became interested in German Brine soap because I knew salt helped acne and I wanted to see if it would help as an additive to CP soap. I was surprised to find there was a soap made from a brine.....lol.....like I brine my Thanksgiving turkey before roasting it.

Literally hours after washing my face it purged, which I would have expected if I were one to have issues with acne (lol). I guess I had a few pimples under the skin that were lying dormant . I washed one area of my lower arm near my wrist (one arm only) and it had a few small ones pop up also. Rarely do I ever have pimples but when I do they are deep and painful. It's nice to know that if I "were" one who suffered from acne on a regular basis that with regular use Soleseife would possibly keep bad breakouts at bay.

I ground my Pink Himalayan Sea Salt to a powder and then dissolved in hot water and there was no sediment. I had one container of water for my lye to dissolve and one for my salt and then combined them once things cooled to my desired temp. I love how hard and smooth these were; the only thing I didn't like was that I made such a small amount. Note to self: make more sooooon.

This post is from 2014. You'd be much better off starting a new thread and linking to this.

 

[Michele50]

This post is from 2014. You'd be much better off starting a new thread and linking to this.

Thanks . I knew it was an old thread (lol) but I still like reading the older ones for the helpful info; I like reading anything 'soap.' I'll have to figure out how to link a new thread to older ones. I'm a new member so so not up on navigating within it; however, I've read a lot of things on this forum before becoming a member.

You're sweet in informing me of this; I love this forum!!