Pink Himalayan Salt Soap Recipe

Want to make your bathroom feel like a luxury spa? Salt soap is often sold for high prices but it is easy to make yourself at home with our pink Himalayan salt soap recipe! 

The pink Himalayan salt creates a beautiful, exfoliating bar of soap and the salt is packed with minerals that do wonders for your skin.

A true salt soap contains 50% to 100% of the weight of the oils in salt. This salt soap recipe uses 50% which gives a dense, lotion like lather. Salt is a lather killer so we use 100% coconut oil in our salt soap recipe to counteract it and bring some fluffy bubbles.

Let's have a go at our easy pink salt soap recipe...

Ingredients:

This pink Himalayan salt soap recipe will make around 800g of soap.

• 450g coconut oil
• 135g water 
• 66g sodium hydroxide 
• 10ml | 9g geranium essential oil
• 4ml | 3.5g ylang ylang essential oil
• 6g of pink mica powder
• 225g pink Himalayan salt 

Equipment:

• Gloves
• Goggles
• Weighing scales 
• Hand blender
• Individual silicone soap moulds (we tried a loaf mould for this recipe and it didn't work well).
• 2 x 1 litre plastic jugs and 1 smaller plastic jug
• Silicone or stainless steel spatula
• Digital or jam thermometer

Safety Note: When working with sodium hydroxide you must wear gloves and goggles at all times. It is a caustic product and will burn. In the event of getting it on your skin, rinse well with plenty of plain water. If it is splashed in the eyes, wash with water and seek urgent medical attention. Keep away from pets and children at all times.

Method:

1. Weigh and mix your water and sodium hydroxide

• Weigh your cold water into one of your jugs and place to one side
• Pop your safety gear on - goggles and gloves
• Weigh the sodium hydroxide into your paper cup or mug. Make sure you pop the lid back on as it attracts water quickly.
• Pour the sodium hydroxide into your water jug, not the other way around. Take care to do this in a ventilated area. Stir for around 10 to 15 seconds until completely dissolved with your spatula.
• Place safely to one side. It will be too hot to use at the moment.

2. Weigh and heat your oils

• If you're using a microwave, weigh out the coconut oil into a 1 litre jug. If you're using a stove, weight it out into a saucepan
• Heat the coconut oil gently until it has all melted.
• If your coconut oil is over 40C then let it cool

3. Mix and combine your essential oils and mica powder

• Weigh your essential oils and mix to combine
• Weigh your cosmetic clay and mix this in with your essential oils - this will help ensure it blends easily into your soap.
• In a separate container, weigh your salt. You'll need to add this when your soap reaches trace, so keep it close by.

4. Test the temperatures

• Test the temperature of your sodium hydroxide mixture, you're looking for 29-34C. Allow it to cool down if it is too hot, but don't reheat if it is too cool.
• Test your coconut oil temperature, you're looking for 29-34C ideally. You can reheat it if necessary, just don't work below 26C
• Pour your essential oils/mica mix into your coconut oil and blend.

5. Blend until trace

• This recipe will reach trace quickly, so be prepared!
• Pour your sodium hydroxide solution into your oils
• Stir gently with your hand blender and then blend until it reaches a light trace.
• Pour the salt into the soap mixture and blend quickly

6. Pour into your moulds

• We definitely recommend using individual moulds for this recipe because the salt soap hardens and becomes hard to cut.
• Pour the soap mixture into your moulds and level out as best you can.
• Put your moulds into a box and wrap in towels to keep it warm
• Unmould your soap after 2 days and leave the bars to cure for 4-6 weeks. Remember to use gloves for handling the soap at this stage because it still isn't skin safe.

Here's our finished bars. You can see that the soap has cracked and crumbled when we were struggling to cut it.

You can also use silicone soap moulds to get creative with your soap bars!

How did your pink Himalayan salt soap come out? Let us know on our Facebook or Instagram