Teach Soap

A few months ago I made some salt bars. I used 6 oz of salt for 1 lb of oils. It was a layered bar and only the middle layer contained salt, and the salt that I chose was fine grain Himalayan pink salt. I put it in BB's cube mold. The bars look awesome out of the mold. But the first time I used it it scratched my skin up so badly that my friend thought I had been attacked by a cat! Also, the bar doesn't really lather, even though I used and I used a lot of coconut oil (80%). The superfat percentage was high, around 10% or more.

So....are these things normal for salt soap? I see other soapers on the internet say that their salt bars sell like hotcakes, but I don't even feel comfortable giving these away as gifts because they are so abrasive. What are other people's experience with salt bars?

Himalayan pink salt is very large & coarse and would most likely be very scratchy. I use regular table salt in mine and it's as smooth as a stone but gently exfoliates.

What other oils/butters did you use with your coconut? Was it one that helps boost & stabilize lather? I usually use castor oil & shea butter in my salt bars as well because shea is a good moisturizer and both of them are good at stabilizing lather.

My salt bars I SF at at least 20% or a lot of times 30%. 10% on a soap with 80% coconut oil would be really drying to me.

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Genny