It was so exciting to meet Eileen at the Portland HSMG Handcrafted Soap Makers Guild 2012 Conference this week.  She is another participant in the GreatCakesSoapworks weekly Challenges!  What a wonderful time meeting soapers from around the world and Eileen who hails from Canada our sister country and peaceful neighbor!

As I was traveling this week, I did this salt bar last weekend so I could share it today! Think I should name this one the   Blue Lagoon Sea Salt Bar?  Or perhaps Situation Soap as it did get me into a situation!

Once again many thanks go out to Amy Warden.  She is a wonder in soap and in organizational skills! Amy  has organized this International Soaping Challenge and currently there are 93 soaping artist participating in one part of this world or another.   Wonderful artists and you can check them out at  Amy's GreatCakesoap works blog and it  can be found  here! 

Here is the situation when it comes to Salt Bars, you must cut them soon after they are removed from the oven or well they turn into brick!  So don't have previous plans that have slipped your mind.

I'm cruising along in my soaping kitchen in the zone as they say and totally lost all track of time.   Do you ever get into that creative zone so deep that you loose track of time?  Yeah!   A 6 PM engagement, not a problem.  So I'm pulling this soap out of the oven at 5:50 PM and I'm due somewhere at 6!


Holy rollerskating derby.  What to do, what to do?  I thought about insulating it in a bubble wrap lined cardboard box hoping it would keep warm enough to cut at 9:30 PM, panic, email a friend, she says  ah freeze it for 20 minutes?, oh ah ok,  and once again ~~THANK you Holly~~, a table fan!  Why didn't I think of that!

So I elevated the soap on top of my down draft fan for the oven on a pie cooling rack turned on the down draft, the overhead microwave fan and also a small table fan onto the sides of the mold.  Forgot to take a photo in the panic.   YES it worked and I was able to cut these babies in 30 minutes!

Being afraid the center would ooze I cut the ends off and they looked pretty good so I split the log right down the middle and did cubes.  These smell real good and I think they will clean up nicely.  Rosemary mint lemon goodness!  A touch of glitter on the top and there you have it.  Do we need stock in the glitter company darling husband?  So this is an 80% coconut oil soap with 90% sea salt in the recipe to make these spa quality salt bars and it should lather in salt water so I hear! A tip here  do not use iodizes table salt!

Interesting with these bars, the outside edges of the soap where the cooling happens first are so well defined and beautiful.  The cut edges like in the middle are a little ragged.  They should clean up when the cure is finished.  They will be like tumbled rock smooth after the first use or two.  Oh joy salt soaps, yeah!  Name?  The Rosemary Situation ?  Sounds like a spy novel.


Sometime during this challenge workshop many of the soapers will be doing a swap of one of their creations!   A bus-mans holiday in soaps and it will be exciting also!  So I haven't contacted my swap person yet, when I return from the frozen north I will do that!   SantaBarbaraSoaps in Goleta perhaps I think  they do beautiful salt bars if I have the correct shop!

Oh here is a link to the recipe I used and I do like it.  My adjustment to this recipe was to CPOP and cut right away!   Drop in and check this out!  Salt Soap  ~~  Salt Soap Recipe here .

Can't wait to get home and try these babies out.