1. It has to have LOTS of lather – and not just any lather: STABLE lather.
2. It has to leave my skin feeling moisturized.

I hold salt bars to the same high standards, so when I tested the three salt bars that I made recently in the shower, I had some mixed results.

My 3 Salt Bars

I’ve tried all three of these salt bars in the shower now at least once. I measure the stability of the lather based on whether or not I can load up my nylon scrubby with soap just once and still have some left over after I’ve washed my entire body. (Remember I have soft water!) The brown one did the best in this test. The pink and blue one came pretty close.

My legs are the first place to show dry skin, so if I see dryness there, I know the soap isn’t moisturizing enough. The pink bar failed this test pretty miserably. The blue one worked pretty well, as did the brown one.

Out of all three of my salt bars, if I were handing out points, I would give the most points to the brown one (Cedarwood Sage salt bar made with beer) in overall performance.

I sent one of the Cedarwood Sage bars to Cecelia of Soap on a Whim in exchange for this most decadent salt bar:

Monoi de Tahiti Tiare Salt Bar by Soap on a Whim

She was curious about a salt bar made with beer, and I was definitely curious about a salt bar made with Monoi! If you’ve never heard of Monoi de Tahiti Tiare, it is a pure coconut oil infused with tiare blooms (Tahitian gardenia) – and it is lovely!! The full ingredients list for this soap is as follows: saponified Monoi de Tahiti Tiare Oil, Virgin Coconut Oil, Cocoa Butter, Avocado Oil, Shea Butter, and Castor Oil; also pure canning salt and coconut milk.

I am happy to say that this soap passed both of my tests in the shower quite handily! The lather felt creamy smooth, and the light scent of gardenia was intoxicating! I even made my husband try it without telling him what it was. (He’s not a fan of salt bars.) His comment, “It sure beats those salt bars!” So there you have it! Fabulous salt bar indeed if my hubby says so!

Now I’m anxious to see what Cecelia thinks of mine.

On to this week’s challenge: creating peaked tops! It’s a fairly simple technique if you allow your soap to set up before attempting to create peaks (similar to piping soap from week 3!) Instead of teaching this challenge myself, I will leave it to the masters and share their videos with you.

First up is Lyn from Lynnz Artisan Soaps and Candles. She’s pretty famous for her peaked tops in the soaping world, and graciously made this video to show how she does it:

I am also going to highlight a couple of our very own Soap Challenge participants whose textured tops are also well known. Celine from iamhandmade.com also has a unique style. Check out this video of her making a Lavender Rose Chocolat Pure Essential Soap. Starting at about the 12 minute mark you can see her texture the top of the soap.

Holly of Missouri River Soap also has a pretty neat technique. I am highlighting one of her more popular videos. She’s making a Huckleberry Cream Kitchen Soap, and starting at the 6:45 minute mark she begins the texture process.

If you’d like to try whipping some soap to put on top, that would be another option. When I was making beer soaps with the samples of Brambleberry beer fragrances, I just set aside some white soap for the top and used my stick blender with the whisk attachment to whip some air into it so it would look like froth:

Raspberry Porter Soap by Great Cakes Soapworks, made Feb 2011

So now you should have some ideas to work with! There are lots of ways to go about this challenge, and I can’t wait to see how each one of you applies it to your own unique soap! (Only two more weeks after this one – can you believe it?)

Now – this week’s Soap Challenge was to formulate a salt bar. I first heard about salt bars in 2005, and I think they have been in and out of popularity ever since! I have dabbled with making salt bars before, but never really landed on a recipe that I truly loved.

So this week, I made three completely different recipes, hoping to find at least one that I could actually fall in love with. I think I may have two! So far, I’ve only tested them on my hands. The true test for me will be to try each one in the shower and make sure the lather doesn’t disappear too quickly.

But until then, here are the results of my lather and skin feel testing so far:

Salt Bar Lather Testing

I’m so curious about what you all came up with for your salt bar recipes! Let the sharing begin!!

Bloggers: Create a post about your salt bar experiment – with photos of course! Try to include as much recipe information as you feel comfortable sharing. Don’t forget to include the scent you used! Please include a link back to my blog in your post (either the home page, or this post should work nicely!).

Facebook business page photos: Upload your photo(s) into a photo album, and write a descriptive caption on the photo you are linking up to this post – including as much recipe information as you feel comfortable sharing, as well as the scent you used. To link the photo, click on it, then copy and paste the URL into the “blog post URL” blank at the top. In the next step, it will show your photo, and you will need to select it. (If you press the “crop” button instead, you can adjust what the thumbnail of your photo will look like.)

YouTubers: You can create a link to a YouTube video of your soap! There will be a little frog icon instead of a thumbnail photo of the soap, but anyone who clicks on your link will be able to see your video. Starting on your video page, click the “share” button and copy the URL. You can use this URL for the “blog post URL” blank. Then in the next step, ignore all the tiny blue boxes and click the “direct image URL” tab across the top and paste the URL of your youtube video in the blank again and hit the “submit query” button.

Uploading a photo from your computer: If you don’t have a blog or business page on facebook or a youtube video, you can still upload a photo from your computer. Just put n/a in the “blog post URL” blank and go to the next step. It will give you an error message, but it will still work! Just click the tab across the top that says “upload from computer” and you will be able to browse your files and upload a photo. I will remove the dead link ASAP.

This week’s link-up will remain open until next Saturday!

Mokalata is a very unique soap made with pure kahlua (coffee liqueur) and a sweet chocolatey-coffee type aroma. I’ve added real coffee grounds to the contrasting white soap for added visual appeal as well as some exfoliation. These are some pretty rugged looking bars – and only 7 available!

Mokalata Soap by Great Cakes Soapworks

China Rain is nearly opposite the Mokalata soap, both in appearance and fragrance. It is a very delicate looking soap, although it weighs the same and is packed with all the skin-loving oils and butters you are used to getting in our soaps. The fragrance is also a delicate floral-like rain scent, clean and refreshing. The base color of this soap came naturally from the fragrance. Only 11 of these available:

China Rain Soap by Great Cakes Soapworks

Click the photos to purchase. Just $6.50 each, or buy any 4 or more soaps to save $1.00 each!

This week’s challenge is to formulate a salt bar recipe. (This will require that you have a working knowledge of a soap calculator, such as SoapCalc.) Salt bars are their own little category of handmade soap! They are reputed to create a super-hard, long-lasting bar of soap with a very creamy and moisturizing lather. Some will end up feeling like a polished stone after just a few uses. Now, here’s the downside: salt inhibits lather, so if you want your salt bar to have any lather at all, you will have to use a rather high percentage of coconut oil – the only oil that will produce lather in salt water. This can create another problem: hard, crumbly soap that is drying for your skin. Most people who make salt bars on a regular basis recommend anywhere from 80-90% coconut oil with 15-20% superfat, and salt can be added at up to a 1:1 ratio with the amount of oils. Ladybug Soapworks wrote a tutorial with a recipe in this range. Not everyone subscribes to this philosophy, however, so in doing my own testing, I created three different recipes:

Recipe 1: 40% coconut oil, 8% superfat, coarse kosher salt at 75% of oils, liquids: half aloe vera juice, half coconut milk

Recipe 2: 90% coconut oil, 15% superfat, fine sea salt at 75% of oils, liquids: 100% coconut milk

Recipe 3: 80% coconut oil, 20% superfat, fine sea salt at 75% of oils, liquids: 100% beer

Check out my video to see how my three recipes turned out:

In Saturday’s link-up post I will do a follow-up video showing how each of the three soaps perform – both their lathering qualities and how they feel on my skin. I understand that a good salt bar is like a good castile soap – it gets better with age. In fact, just like castile soap, some people cure their salt bars for up to a year! So while I may not get the results I would get from a proper cure time, I will at least be able to compare the three soaps and make an initial judgment.

Tips: All three of the liquids I used (aloe vera juice, coconut milk, and beer) are great lather boosters, as is castor oil. Shea and cocoa butters have also been recommended to increase moisture. Any oils or butters you choose to add to your recipe are up to you! I believe the more variety of oils you use, the better the soap will turn out – which is why I created the first soap with just 40% coconut oil. I was able to add 5 additional oils and butters.

Just remember – do NOT use Dead Sea salt, as it will cause excess sweating. I do know what I’m talking about. Either kosher or sea salt will work just fine, and best of all, you can find them at any grocery store or Walmart.

One more thing: If you want to be able to cut your salt bar, it is highly recommended that you use the CPOP (cold process, oven process) method, and put your soap in the oven on the lowest setting for one and a half to two hours, and cut it as soon as it’s set up (anywhere from 3-6 hours after putting it in the oven). Otherwise, it will be hard as a brick. If you happen to let it set up too long and can’t cut it, you can always return the soap to the oven and warm it up again. The only other way around this is to use individual molds so that you don’t have to cut the soap at all!

For the challenge, you can create one recipe, or several. It’s really up to you. I would love for you to share how much coconut oil you used and superfat amount, and any other information you care to share. Perhaps by compiling all our data, we can decide which ingredients and superfat amounts will create the best salt bar! Don’t be afraid to push the envelope – let’s get creative!

I decided that the Green Tea & Bamboo soap that I made could have had a little more color to start, but I think the overall effect turned out pretty nicely:

Here are some photos:

Green Tea & Bamboo Soap by Great Cakes Soapworks

Darker specks are bits of Nag Champa soap shavings

Ok, now show us whatcha got! I can’t wait to see everyone’s soaps!

Bloggers: Create a post about your gradient soap – with photos of course! Describe your scent and colors and what inspired you to create your soap. Please include a link back to my blog in your post (either the home page, or this post should work nicely!).

Facebook business page photos: Upload your photo(s) into a photo album, and write a descriptive caption on the photo you are linking up to this post – including the scent of your soap, and how you were inspired. To link the photo, click on it, then copy and paste the URL into the “blog post URL” blank at the top. In the next step, it will show your photo, and you will need to select it. (If you press the “crop” button instead, you can adjust what the thumbnail of your photo will look like.)

YouTubers: You can create a link to a YouTube video of your soap! There will be a little frog icon instead of a thumbnail photo of the soap, but anyone who clicks on your link will be able to see your video. Starting on your video page, click the “share” button and copy the URL. You can use this URL for the “blog post URL” blank. Then in the next step, ignore all the tiny blue boxes and click the “direct image URL” tab across the top and paste the URL of your youtube video in the blank again and hit the “submit query” button.

Uploading a photo from your computer: If you don’t have a blog or business page on facebook or a youtube video, you can still upload a photo from your computer. Just put n/a in the “blog post URL” blank and go to the next step. It will give you an error message, but it will still work! Just click the tab across the top that says “upload from computer” and you will be able to browse your files and upload a photo. I will remove the dead link ASAP.

Black Raspberry Creme soap by Great Cakes Soapworks

Side view

View of the tops - just a hint of glitter!

Click any photo to purchase! As always, our soaps are $6.50 each, or save $1.00 each when you buy any four or more.

Country Clothesline Gradient Soap by Great Cakes Soapworks

With the blue soap, it ended up looking a little bit like waves, so it wasn’t a total flop! But this is the challenge with doing the gradient layers. They can be very thin, so it’s easy to break through if you aren’t careful!

Here is my video for this week’s challenge. I made a Green Tea & Bamboo soap, using the dark to light method – although now that I’ve cut the soap, I think I should have made a darker base color to start with. You will need to adjust the amount of soap you are using in each layer to the size of your batch. If you keep the proportions the same, it should turn out just fine! (Just keep adding an equal portion of your white soap to your colored soap before pouring each layer, pouring off half the soap each time.)

You can also do a color-to-color gradient, say orange to yellow or blue to green…

Need a greater challenge? Try doing a 3-color gradient! This is what I did for my Hawaiian Sunrise soap:

Hawaiian Sunrise Gradient Soap by Great Cakes Soapworks

I divided the soap into three colors: orange, pink, and purple. I believe I had 1 part orange, 2 parts pink, and 1 part purple.

Reminder: Soap Swap Sign-Up will be closing Tuesday at 8pm CST. We have 48 people signed up so far!!

The link-up for this challenge will open on Saturday at 6am CST. I look forward to seeing your soaps! And let me know if you have any questions before then!

In case you skipped the video, the fragrance I used is called Acai & Mangosteen. I think I’ve decided to call the soap Purple Mangosteen. I would imagine most people in the U.S. have never heard of mangosteens, which is why I had to google it just to figure out what it was! I discovered that it’s a tropical evergreen tree, and the fruit of the mangosteen is sweet and tangy, juicy, and somewhat fibrous, with an inedible, deep reddish purple-colored rind when ripe. They are readily available in grocery stores in Australia, but not in North America or Europe.

Some people may have heard of acai, but who really knows how to pronounce it? Acai is also a tropical plant that has gotten more attention lately due to its antioxidant properties. Dr. Perricone, known for his research on the link between diet and healthy skin, lists acai at the top of his list of superfoods – not that there is any of the real acai plant material in the soap!

And here is a photo:

Purple Mangosteen Soap by Great Cakes Soapworks

(References: Wikipedia, Oprah.com)

I am looking forward to seeing everyone’s faux funnel pour soaps! It’s share time!

Bloggers: Create a post about your faux funnel pour soap – with photos of course! Describe your scent and colors and what inspired you to create your soap. Please include a link back to my blog in your post (either the home page, or this post should work nicely!).

Facebook business page photos: Upload your photo(s) into a photo album, and write a descriptive caption on the photo you are linking up to this post – including the scent of your soap, and how you were inspired. To link the photo, click on it, then copy and paste the URL into the “blog post URL” blank at the top. In the next step, it will show your photo, and you will need to select it. (If you press the “crop” button instead, you can adjust what the thumbnail of your photo will look like.)

YouTubers: You can create a link to a YouTube video of your soap! There will be a little frog icon instead of a thumbnail photo of the soap, but anyone who clicks on your link will be able to see your video. Starting on your video page, click the “share” button and copy the URL. You can use this URL for the “blog post URL” blank. Then in the next step, ignore all the tiny blue boxes and click the “direct image URL” tab across the top and paste the URL of your youtube video in the blank again and hit the “submit query” button.

Uploading a photo from your computer: If you don’t have a blog or business page on facebook or a youtube video, you can still upload a photo from your computer. Just put n/a in the “blog post URL” blank and go to the next step. It will give you an error message, but it will still work! Just click the tab across the top that says “upload from computer” and you will be able to browse your files and upload a photo. I will remove the dead link ASAP.

Honey Lemon and Chai Tea Lip Butters

It took several test batches to get them perfected, but I believe you will love the results! Chai Tea is a warm, comforting flavor with extra vanilla, cinnamon, and just a hint of sweet added. I expected to like this one more than the Honey Lemon, but then the Honey Lemon knocked my socks off!!

Just to smell it, you would think it’s just a regular ol’ honey lip balm. Not so once applied!! You get the honey, and then you get the lemon, and also a hint of sweet that lingers on your lips. Just enough to make you love it, not enough to make you want to lick it all off – at least I didn’t!

These two lovelies have been added to the Great Cakes Soapworks website and are available for purchase, along with our six other fabulous flavors and non-flavored Nourishing. (There is just one Orange Creamsicle left…) Click the photo to order!