Salt bars! I am in loooooooove!

[stephasafari]

Now that I made this first batch of salt bars I think I ONLY want to make salt bars! What a fun adventure this was!

I used the recipe provided by the YouTube page soapmaking101. [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVaK5sm0jmc[/ame]

I used Australian Pink Clay and French Green Clay and scented it with a mix of Eggnog and Maple Sugar FO's. Her recipe was fantastic- even after putting the salt and FO's in I still had a touch of time to play with before it went super gloppy.

I got so excited that today I made LovinSoap's Pumpkin and Coconut Milk salt bars- I'm a pumpkin addict so I was literally drooling over the recipe. http://www.lovinsoap.com/2012/09/pumpkin-coconut-milk-salt-bars/

This batch got REAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLY thick and RIGHT away! She mentioned this in her post and said she did a liquid discount so I tried to add an extra tablespoon each of coconut milk and pumpkin puree and even put 0.5oz less of salt- I didn't want to reduce any numbers too much, I'm still too new to be fooling around with numbers!

As you can see in the photo below, it was sooooo thick that I struggled to pack it into the molds! (I used pumpkins- I hope the stem stays when I remove them!) What a clean up, btw! Jeeeeeeesh!

Anywho- they smell divine! I'll post a photo of them out of the mold soon! =)

 

[Pepsi Girl]

I just ordered some French Green Clay today! I've never use clay so I thought I'd give it a whirl! I think I might try some pumkin soap there's lots of free pumpkin out there right now.

 

[Hazel]

Those look lovely and you did a great swirl!

 

[stephasafari]

Thanks. =)

Took them out of the mold and I see this:

I assume this is what gelling is?
Why did this batch gel and my clay batch not gel?
Also, I notice now there is what I believe to be ash forming on my clay salt bars. It looks like white powdery flecks.

A) How do I get the ash off the salt bars -- would spraying alcohol at this point help or is only steam helpful? Or is this salt?

B) I'm confused about the gelling in my pumpkin salt bars. Is this supposed to happen- I've read mixed readings on gelling and none of my other batches of CP soap have gelled to date. I'm confused on the entire topic...would anyone have any useful links about the basics of gelling? I tried searching in the search bar but I'm not finding anything that's really basic information... Are they still useable?

Help!

 

[judymoody]

Pumpkin will heat up soap batter like nobody's business. It's quite possible for it to gel on the counter with no insulation, and even overheat. The sugars in the pumpkin are responsible. Honey, beer, other vegetable purees can behave similarly. Coconut milk is also a heater. Between the two of them, it would be difficult to avoid gel.

I'm not sure about removing ash from salt bars. Usually people use steam or a damp cloth. But that would start to dissolve the salt. Maybe somebody else will have a good idea.

 

[Maythorn]

These are all lovely and I watched the video and am going to try it. I don't have silicone molds though. I just have some Milky Way molds I got at a garage sale.