{"id":83,"date":"2008-05-28T13:27:41","date_gmt":"2008-05-28T19:27:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greatcakessoapworks.com\/handmade-soap-blog\/?p=83"},"modified":"2008-06-02T20:28:29","modified_gmt":"2008-06-03T02:28:29","slug":"experiment-1-wet-salt-bars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greatcakessoapworks.com\/handmade-soap-blog\/index.php\/experiment-1-wet-salt-bars\/","title":{"rendered":"Experiment #1: Wet Salt Bars"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Wet<\/a>\"Cut<\/a>Well, it wasn’t a complete failure, but something isn’t quite right here. Yesterday I completed my first salt bar experiment using 80% coconut oil, 15% shea butter, and 5% castor oil with a 15% superfat. As the soap started to thicken, I added some Mediterranean Sea Salt fragrance oil and a green oxide coloring. Finally, I added Fine Dead Sea Salt equal to the amount of oils and just stirred it with a spoon. I thought it would get pretty thick once I added the salt, but it didn’t. After pouring it into the mold, I put it in the oven at 170 degrees for two hours. It was warm and gelled when I pulled it out. I left the lid on the mold, and four hours later, it was all wet and oozing!! Since it was still warmish, I decided to go ahead and cut it before it got too hard. This was a small batch of soap and I cut it into small bars. I wish I had taken a picture of the pool of wetness on top of the soap before I cut it, but you can see how moist it was. The blue soap mold liners are very wet. I even had trouble getting it out of the mold because the moisture had created a vacuum on the bottom. This morning the soap was harder, but still soft enough for me to break a bar in half. I’m going to see if it will harden as it cures. I’m thinking the culprit might be the type of salt that I used. There are lots of other minerals in the Dead Sea Salt that might interfere with the soapmaking process. Never fear, I have two other types of salt that I plan to try next! (Notice I filed this post under the “Making Soap” category, not the “Botched Batches”!!)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, it wasn’t a complete failure, but something isn’t quite right here. Yesterday I completed my first salt bar experiment using 80% coconut oil, 15% shea butter, and 5% castor oil with a 15% superfat. As the soap started to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-botched-batches","category-making-soap"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t