How To Avoid Salt Ash

      I have noticed I have had several people search about salt ash.  This is a white powder thing that appears on cold process soap.  The main cause is exposure to air during the curing time.  This mostly happens the first few days.  This summer I discovered a really good solution.  Over the last two years I end up mostly making hot process.  It has a faster turn around.  I do have some soaps that need to be made cold.  A friend of mine wanted to give gifts for her sons wedding rehearsal.  We decided on a soap using a mold with a butterfly design.  This meant I could not make it hot.  Too hard to make it without air bubbles.  The first batch came out great but then the dreaded ash started I was getting nervous. I know you can gently wash the soap to get it off but I didn't want to mess up the design.  I was thinking about what to do. I decided since air was the problem that maybe if I covered the bars with the towels I had used to keep them warm after pouring that it would help.  Well, how happy was I to find that it worked.  I did that to all of my soaps after that and didn't have any more problems.  Now just to clarify any doubt.  I used regular bath towels.  Even though you are trying to cut down on oxygen it still needs to breath and dry.  I still stacked my sheets of cardboard with the soap on it.  I just put a towel over the whole thing.  Being me I still ended up washing them just to smooth out the trimming on the bottom.  I didn't want them to look like I trimmed.

This is the pink version.  I used pink kaolin Clay to get the pink color.  It's Lavender Mint.  How can you go wrong.

   

All wrapped up.  The other bars are a purple version.  I strained oil infused with alkanet root powder and added that to my oils.  To get more of a lavender color I added pink kaolin clay.  Worked out perfect.  Nature strikes again.

 I hope this helps you out.  Ash can be so frustrating.  If this doesn't work for you.  I am not sure what else to do.  Good Luck!