Those of you who use castile soap

Castile soap in it’s most pure form should be made with olive oil (or other oils, but traditionally, it was made with olive oil) and lye. This would make a traditional hard bar, though.

To make liquid castile soap you should see mostly oils (olive, coconut, jojoba, various essential oils, etc.) and then potassium hydroxide instead of normal lye. There should be NONE remaining after the saponification process, however. Just as there should be NO LYE left in bars of soap after the saponificaion process. You can also see citric acid as an ingredient as well. Though I am not sure as to the exact reason why, it is a common ingredient in natural cleaners and bath products. The other thing you can see on the ingredients list often is tocopherol which is a naturally occuring chemical that is often used and even referred to as vitamin E. I am not sure, though, if it is “real” vitamin E or just very close to it and can be used as it.

HTH

-Miranda

The original definition is this: Castile soap is a name used in English-speaking countries for olive oil based soap made in a style similar to that originating in the Castile region of Spain. – Wikipedia

Now that term is often used to include soaps that are made with shea butter, coconut oil and palm oil, etc. as well. While not technically correct when used this way, it’s one way that people/ companies use to denote a product that is made with vegetable fats rather than animal fats.

List of castile soaps off the top of my head – ie. not comprehensive by any stretch of the imagination:

Dr. Bronner’s
Kirk’s Natural
Kiss My Face Oil Oil Soap (various scents or the plain jane variety – we use these)
Dr. Woods
Desert Essence has one as well, I believe

There are various small companies that have a line of castile soaps as well. Does that help?

So funny you posted about this…I’m currently doing a ‘chemical cleanout’ of our house (not 100%, but as much as I can). And during all my research, I discovered Castille soap. Apparently you can make lots of all-around cleaning solutions with it. If anyone has any ‘recipes’ or tips for this, let me know!

I just recently started using castile soap.  I use Dr. Bronner’s, and have so far loved it.  I use it to make my homemade all-purpose/glass/disinfectant cleaner (yes, it does all three beatifully).  I fill a 64 oz industrial spray bottle with half water and half white distilled vinegar, then I add about a teaspoon of castile soap and about 10 drops of essential oil (tea tree, pine, sweet orange, or lavender all have disinfectant properties).  You have to let it sit for a bit, because once you add the castile soap to the water/vinegar solution, it hardens.  If you let it sit for about a half hour, the soap will dissolve and mix easily with the vinegar and water.  Just give the bottle a quick shake whenever you use it.  I also use Dr. Bronner’s castile soap in bar form for bathing, and just tried a new recipe using the liquid castile soap for laundry detergent.  The jury’s still out on whether or not it’s working like it should.  This last load didn’t come out quite as clean as I would have liked, though the load before that was a load of sheets my cat had hacked up a hairball on, and those cleaned up nicely.  I’ll post a link to the recipe if it winds up working for me consistently.