Sea Salt Exfoliating Soap

Hey reader,

I am so excited to bring you content that is unrelated to house stuff yet again this week! I bought some awesome new scents that will make for some great soap.

Check out my new P&J oil in Cotton Candy and Bubble Gum. They are really reasonably priced, and I have already used the soap I am writing about here and can confirm I didn't break out into horrific rashes. Woo.

I am not the most sensitive person when it comes to shower and bath products. I suppose I am not the most sensitive person in any context. Though that isn't necessarily a statement of my almost pathological lack of emotions, it is more just a matter of fact. There are certainly more sensitive people than me.

Point is, I like to try out a soap first and see if I react before letting others try it. However, I make a poor test subject since very little causes a reaction in me. Since this is unlikely to be the last candy scented bath product I make, you can rest assured there will be other test subjects soon. I promise not to test on animals - except that humans are animals. Bunnies don't appreciate a good cotton candy reference anyway.

In an attempt to make this soap more interesting than my last soap outing, I wanted to make this one with an exfoliant. I had this pink sea salt that I kept saying I would use in a bath bomb project and decided this was as good a time as any. I laid out an even layer of the salt in the bottom of my soap tray and then prepared my soap.

As you know, I am desperate to try blinding myself with lye, but I have a lot of soap base left so I will use that for now. I made one mistake in this project, and that was making small batches of soap at a time. I wound up doing four layers of soap in the mold, and the layers are super visible. It isn't the end of the world, but something I would definitely do differently next time. I was mildly concerned that the soap would dissolve too much of the salt, but it stayed pretty well. I did need to pour it really slow and try not to stay in one place or all the salt would get pushed to the sides.

The first layer I did clear, and didn't add any scent. But the next three I did in a pink color and added plenty of my Bubble Gum oil. I found that the freezer was my friend here, but again, I think that actually made my layers more visible because I could spent as much time as I would have wanted tapping out bubbles that formed.

In the end, I had a huge block of pink soap just itching to be set free. I read that if you hit the soap with a blow torch you can get some of those surface bubbles out. Frankly, I don't have a blow torch, and I am not comfortable with that much fire. Plus, while I think the soap would be ok, I am less confident in my plastic soap mold making it through the ordeal.

It took a LONG time for it to completely cure. The middle was still a little soft when I started cutting, but I got impatient. I find the cutting phase of the soap process to be satisfying, but hitting the salt at the bottom added an even cooler crunch noise that I didn't realize was missing from the process.

From this angle you can see the layers. It is disappointing, but once you start rubbing it on yourself, you won't notice anymore so I am ok with it. In the future I will do bigger batches at a time to avoid this issue, or embrace it and change colors as I go.

I realized that the salt gives an interesting effect like a geode. I have seen a bunch of videos where people cut clear soap like this into crystal shapes, and I think it would be an even more convincing illusion with the salt at the bottom. That is a project for another day.

Check out the soap spread I now have in my master bathroom. I try not to think about the textured walls in there.

I have a lot of soap and bathroom based projects in mind for these new oils. It is nice to work on stuff that isn't the walls for a minute. Even if I do feel guilty I am not making progress as fast as I would like.

Keep making cool stuff!
Until next time,
JoshPrime