salt with pine or neem?

[Obsidian]

salt with pine or neem?- Failure

Has anyone ever made a salt bar with pine tar or neem? Thinking about trying a small batch of salt and pine but not sure how much pine tar to try initially.

 

[Obsidian]

I went ahead and made a small batch, stirred by hand to prevent instant trace and everything went really well. I used both pine and neem, added salt at thick trace and pour into individual molds. Will report back once I can unmold.

 

[MOGal70]

Anxious to hear how this experiment turns out!

 

[Obsidian]

I've unmolded it, should have waited a bit longer. It was a bit soft and stuck some but not too bad. The batter did get a tad oily while it was sitting up but its all absorbed back into the bars now. I wouldn't have wanted to cut this, it was crumbly like a regular salt bar but kinda sticky and oily like pine tar.
The mold is home made from single serve pringle cans, you can see some in the back ground of the second picture. A weird shape and kinda deep , next time I use them, I won't fill so far up.

 

[Obsidian]

This is a failure. The bars have no suds or lather. There is a thin something that feels soapy so I suppose it will wash you but it doesn't seem to be a good clean, hard to rinse off. I can only guess that the high superfat has something to do with it. Not sure if its worth further experiments but possible less salt and a lower SF would help with the lather.

I will cure the bars and try again in a week or two, maybe it will improve.

 

[CaraCara]

Interesting experiment. It might be that it is just too soon for lather.

 

[Barbara AL]

Let them cure 8 weeks and than try them I think you will like them better.
I make saltbars with Dead Sea Mud and Charcoal love them I super fat at 15%

 

[judymoody]

Give them a good long cure.

Even without salt, pine tar soap does not produce a very abundant lather.

 

[Obsidian]

Its official, I have no patience. These bars were extremely oily, so bad in fact that I had to use dish soap and a brillo pad to clean my hands. I ended up grating them up into a fine, fluffy loose pile. It felt much like plain salt but oily.
I reworked my original recipe to bring the pine/neem down from 10% to 5%, made a small batch of 100% CO at 10% SF and mixed the two
together. Hoping that adding more CO will balance the bars out some and make a better, more usable product.

 

[Jakeedin]

Obsidian. What a shame. I would have liked to see what would happen after 8 weeks. Earlier today i made a batch of Neem soap and I was feeling alot more confident with the oil so, I have now started to add herbs such as Tulsi, Comfrey etc. In this batch I added Sodium Lactate and found the batch firmed up very quickly. The big mistake was that I foolishly thought it was firm to cut, which it was but the centre was still working. Darn!!! all that hard work. But I am still gonna wait for 8 weeks and see what will happen. This time my neem batch was not oily at all and I am not sure whether it was to do with no Superfat on the Neem. I did use a lot of botanicals plus clay. Superfatted with Sesame Oil.

 

[Obsidian]

What percentage of neem did you use? I made neem bars last week with 25% neem and 8% superfat. It was a touch oily for a few days but not too bad.
These salt bars are completely different, like nothing I've seen before. Even with adding the new soap, they are still very oily. I'll let them cure this time and hope for the best.

 

[tryanything]

I just made my first batch of pine tar soap - 20% pine tar. They are definitely more oily and mushy then my normal bars. It would have been a great experiment to wait. Maybe I'll try this next time I make pine tar soap!


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[Obsidian]

My first pine bars took quite awhile to firm up too but I can't remember how oily they were, I only used 10% though.

I just popped the salt bars out of the molds and nothing has really changed. They are still really oily, it keeps leaking to the top. The edges are crumbly still but over all, the bars are quite hard. I just hope I get more lather out of them this time.

 

[Jakeedin]

Obsidian. This time I used 8% Neem.I shook the bottle well to ensure all Neem ingredients have blended before adding to base oil then saponified. In my previous batches 8% Saponified plus 5% Superfat resulted greasiness then in batch 2, I did a 15% saponified and 5% superfat which resulted greasiness again. However in both of my previous batches the bottle was never shaken. On this occassion, I placed the NEEM bottle in warm water to liquidfy the thing shook it hard (Neem seperates in room temperature after a while). I reduced because all my testers came back feeling the difference with 8% + 5% so, I decided to stay at 8% with added herbs, Comfrey root, Marshmallow, Calendula as my lye with sodium lactate & silk. The superfat this time was Sesame pasted with Bentonite, Fuller's earth, Comfrey root, Tulsi, Basil and Tumeric.
Other than my own stupidity by cutting the loaf after 8hrs thinking it was firm to cut because I was fooled by Sodium lactate (first time using the stuff). The batch turned out absolutely perfect. Oil slicks. I think you can't superfat with NEEM to avoid oiliness.

 

[Jakeedin]

My first pine bars took quite awhile to firm up too but I can't remember how oily they were, I only used 10% though.

I just popped the salt bars out of the molds and nothing has really changed. They are still really oily, it keeps leaking to the top. The edges are crumbly still but over all, the bars are quite hard. I just hope I get more lather out of them this time.

By the sound of what you described. I think it is alright. Neem is creaminess lather that requires water to smooth off. But then it really depends on what else you have in the soap. I've never used salt so not sure whether the crumbliness was due to the salt or not. I think for my batch there was no oiliness was due to either me using herbal stuff or Saponify Neem instead of using as superfat. My guess, saponified NEEM.

 

[Obsidian]

I did a zap test this AM, they passed so I tried lathering a scrap. I got small bubbles and a thin lather but its there and the oiliness has pretty much gone away. I have very little neem in this recipe, there is more pine tar. Its 94% CO, 4% pine tar and 2% neem.

I wouldn't add any extra neem for superfat but then again I don't add extra oils of any kind specifically for superfat since the lye will choose which oils it want to react with, trying to pick what is used as super fat is generally a waste of oil unless you are doing HP. I always use at least 8% superfat on all my recipes, sometimes more. With a salt bar, if using 100% CO, you want to do a 20% SF so it won't be overly drying.