# Body wash recipe WITHOUT Castile soap?



## NickNorma (Jan 2, 2021)

Hi guys,
I'm trying to find a recipe for body wash/shower gel that DOES NOT include Castile soap - I hate the stuff. Hate how it smells on the dry down, and how it makes your skin feel afterwards. Problem is, it seems like EVERY recipe online includes it. I'm wanting a base I can put my fragrance into that is more creamy/gel-like in nature. A company near me sells premade bottles of stuff without Castile, but I'd rather make my own from scratch. They list their ingredients as being: Water, SLES, Glycerin, Olive Oil, Potassium Hydroxide, Sodium Chloride,Cab 30  - but of course, no amounts or instructions on how to replicate. Does anyone have any ideas/tips?


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## AliOop (Jan 2, 2021)

The Swifty Crafty Monkey blog has a shower gel recipe. Monthly memberships to the blog start at $1.


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## lsg (Jan 3, 2021)

Here is an easy recipe from my notes:

Sodium Cocoyl Isethioniate 23 grams
Cocamidopropyl Betaine 25 grams
Distilled Water 181 grams
Raspberry Dimethicone WS 8 grams
Optiphen ND 3grams
FO or EO 3 grams
Glucamate LT 9 grams
Weigh SCI and cocoamidopropyl betaine into a conainer and put into double boiler on low heat, stir occasionally until SCI is melted. Add distilled water and mix. Cool to room temperature.
Combine Raspberrry Dimethicone WS, Optiphen ND and essential oil blend in a separate container. Add to surfactant\water mixture and stir.
Slowly add Glucamate LT to combined mixture with gentle stirring. Check pH and adjust if necessary.
If you want to increase the acidity of your product (reduce the pH), I recommend using citric acid at 0.2% a little at a time to decrease it by about 0.9 or so.


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## NickNorma (Jan 4, 2021)

lsg said:


> Here is an easy recipe from my notes:
> 
> Sodium Cocoyl Isethioniate 23 grams
> Cocamidopropyl Betaine 25 grams
> ...


Thank you!


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## DeeAnna (Jan 4, 2021)

"..._A company near me sells premade bottles of *stuff without Castile*, but I'd rather make my own from scratch. They list their ingredients as being: Water, SLES, Glycerin, *Olive Oil, Potassium Hydroxide*, Sodium Chloride,Cab 30_ ..."

Uh, you might want to know an olive oil soap (olive oil + KOH) IS castile soap. 

The multiple-centuries-old definition of castile is soap made from 100% olive oil. The modern definition of castile for the past century or so is any soap made from only vegetable oils. 

If you really don't like "castile soap" then I'm not sure why you're liking this product. If you bathe in hard water, I suppose maybe the SLeS detergent is reducing the soap scum from the olive oil soap -- that would make a difference in the skin feel.


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## NickNorma (Jan 4, 2021)

DeeAnna said:


> "..._A company near me sells premade bottles of *stuff without Castile*, but I'd rather make my own from scratch. They list their ingredients as being: Water, SLES, Glycerin, *Olive Oil, Potassium Hydroxide*, Sodium Chloride,Cab 30_ ..."
> 
> Uh, you might want to know an olive oil soap (olive oil + KOH) IS castile soap.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the clarification. The pre-made stuff from the local place is not one I've tried yet, I just saw that it was more of a gel-like consistency rather than what my experience with Castile has been. It also didn't list Castile in its ingredients like basically every other recipe I've seen. The Castile soap I've personally experimented with and didn't like was this product here: Castile Soap - Zurma which looking at it now, I can see is a mix of olive oil and coconut oil - which is interesting to me, as I also absolutely hate coconut oil - the smell is very off-putting to me for some reason. Maybe that's why I had a negative experience with the product...

Ideally, I'd love to replicate something like Glo Labs body wash, who list their ingredients as being:

Water
Sodium Luryl Ether Sulfate
Cocamidopropyl Betaine
Sodium Methyl Palmitate Sulfonate
Caprylyl/capryl Glucoside
Coco-Glucoside
Glyceryl Oleate (Plant-based surfactants)
Betaine
Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea) Butter
Agania Spinosa Kernel (Argan) Oil
Panthenol (Vitamin B5)
Tocopheryl Acetate (Vitamin E)
Sodium Sulfate
Sodium Phytate
Sodium Benzoate
Benzyl Alcohol
Dehyroacetic Acid
Citric Acid
Fragrance



GemstonePony said:


> I believe dropping from 30% to 28% lye means you're diluting it with more water, so I would expect less acceleration, probably. Predicting ash is something I'll leave to more experienced soapers.


I don’t know why I have such a hard time with this. So maybe go to %33 to reduce the water?

Ok, having a visual is helpful. I just switched it back and forth in the calculator so I could see the amount of liquid go up and down. Now I feel extra dumb, but at least I got it. Switching back to %33. I’d been soaping at that and then switched to %30 because I thought it would slow acceleration for my pull throughs. For this soap I don’t care if it mildly moves faster, but I really don’t want ash!

Omg I couldn’t figure out why the bottom of my column mold was gettting so much hotter. And, then when I laid out the soaps, the ones from the bottom of the mold left more of a wet imprint on the paper. I really thought I’d reduced the water, and I’d increased it! 
I think I may FINALLY understand it!


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