Margarita Salt Bars

I recently learned about salt bars through my usual Pinterest/Youtube soap browsing. I was surprised to learn that it's the exact same process as making cold process soap, except you modify your oil ratios and add a bunch of sea salt at trace. Given that sea salt is beneficial to your skin and is associated with luxurious bubble baths, I thought I'd give it a try.

Even though I did a bunch of research online, I started with a small batch in case I messed something up. I used a new silicone mold that holds up to 6 round bars, and it worked great for this purpose. Salt bars are supposed to be really hard to cut if you don't cut them soon enough (a few hours after it's poured into the mold), so it's way easier to just pour the soap into individual molds and pop them out 24 hours later.

Unlike regular cold process soap, in which it's best not to have more than 30% of your oils be coconut soap, salt bars require a large amount of coconut oil. (Good thing I went to Costco and bought a giant container of organic extra virgin coconut oil!) The sea salt tends to inhibit lather, so you need about 70%-80% of your total oils to be coconut oil in order to get a nice lather. The coconut oil is not drying (as it would be in CP soap) in salt bars, and most people superfat their salt bars are a higher percentage anyway.

Based on the various recipes I found online, it seems that everyone prefers a different amount of salt in their salt bars. Some go as high as equal to the weight of the soap batter (i.e., if your soap batter ends up being 30 oz, you add 30 oz of salt at trace), some add the same amount of salt as there is oil (i.e., if your recipe has 20 oz of oils, you add 20 oz of salt at trace), and some go as low as half the amount of oil (i.e., if your recipe has 20 oz of oils, you add 10 oz of salt at trace). I decided to go with the middle option (amount of salt = amount of oils), as that seems to be what most people go with.

Again, I made a small batch, so I used 11 oz of oil total. I ended up only filling 5 of the 6 cavities in my mold, so I could probably use 12 or 13 oz of oil next time. Here's the recipe that I used:

Coconut Oil - 8.25 oz (75% of oils)
Avocado Oil - 1.1 oz (10% of oils)
Shea Butter - 1.1 oz (10% of oils)
Castor Oil - 0.55 oz (5% of oils)
Lye & Distilled Water - I used the Brambleberry lye calculator to calculate how I needed. I superfatted at 10%. Some people superfat as high as 20% for salt bars, but since I used a lot of moisturizing oils, I figured 10% would be enough.
I had some margarita fragrance oil that I had yet to try. I figured it would be a totally appropriate fragrance for a salt bar. :) I also used some yellow and green oxide pigment to create a lime green color.
And of course, 11 oz of fine sea salt added at trace. I actually mixed the FO with the salt beforehand and poured them into together in case the FO caused trace acceleration.

Here is what the soap looked like right after I poured it into the mold and after unmolding:

(I'll need to plane the rough side because it looks ugly haha.)

I love how smooth the edges turned out after unmolding. So many people have problems with crumbling when they cut their soap bars, so I'm definitely sticking to this mold for future salt bars. It's so cool how you can actual see the salt! I wish I could test one right away, but argh, I will have to wait another month. This would be perfect in the summer, because it smells super lime-y and refreshing. :)