# Castile Soap



## Lee242 (Sep 20, 2015)

Does Castile Soap have super fat %?


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## DeeAnna (Sep 20, 2015)

Yes, sure it does! Use whatever you normally use for your regular bar soaps. My usual is 2% to 3% superfat, but I'm on the low side compared to most folks.


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## Seawolfe (Sep 20, 2015)

I did my last batch at 5% but Im going to move to 3% next time. Its such a gentle and mild soap any ways, and for a soap that needs to cure as long as castile does, I think 5% superfat puts you at increased risk for DOS.


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## Lee242 (Sep 20, 2015)

I want to use it for laundry soap.


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## Obsidian (Sep 20, 2015)

Castile isn't the greatest for laundry. You would be better with a 100% coconut oil soap with 0% SF.


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## DeeAnna (Sep 20, 2015)

I second what Obsidian said. Castile is better for skin. Coconut oil is better for clothes.


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## Seawolfe (Sep 20, 2015)

+1 for coconut, I don't know if Castile would be cleansing enough for clothes. Or maybe I'm just a grub.


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## DeeAnna (Sep 20, 2015)

Lingerie or other delicate treasures maybe. But clothes with even a normal amount of skin oil and perspiration odor, not to mention anything really dirty or greasy -- I want something with more cleaning power. That's especially true for washing in cold/cool water.


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## The Efficacious Gentleman (Sep 21, 2015)

And you should go with as small a superfat as you feel that you can accurately achieve without being lye heavy. If you have a bad measuring technique and an inaccurate scale, don't shoot for a 0% superfat. 

I have a good scale and a fairly steady hand but still made my last batch of CO soap for laundry at 0.5% sf

Edited to ask - what was it that led you to using Castile for laundry?


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## Lee242 (Sep 21, 2015)

Most of the recipes for laundry soap use castile soap and other bought additives. 
I thought that coconut oil would make the soap to foamy for modern machines.


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## Obsidian (Sep 21, 2015)

coconut soap works fine in HE machines.


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## JayJay (Sep 21, 2015)

Lee242 said:


> Most of the recipes for laundry soap use castile soap and other bought additives.
> I thought that coconut oil would make the soap to foamy for modern machines.



I have. Friend who uses "Castile" mixed with borax and some other stuff for her home made laundry soap. The Castile she is referring to is Dr.B's which is not pure Castile. 

I make a pretty darn good laundry soap and mine is 100% coconut with 0 superfat.  It cleans well and does not suds at all in my HE front loader.  I put washing soda in mine which pretty much cuts the suds.


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## DeeAnna (Sep 21, 2015)

A coconut oil soap works fine in my HE machine too. In fact my HE machine stays much cleaner and fresher smelling a LOT longer when I use my laundry mix than before when I used Tide. I rarely have to clean it anymore with that super high powered nasty cleaner stuff they sell for cleaning washing machines.

I mix the CO soap 50:50 by weight with washing soda and I think the washing soda cuts a lot of the suds.


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## RogueRose (Sep 21, 2015)

From what I've found the word castile doesn't mean a whole lot in some brands and areas of marketing.  It originally was a 100% olive oil soap but it seems some have taken the leeway to make it mean that the soap is 100% vegetable oil soap.  

So, if someone recommends castile, it could be 100% Fractionated CO which would be super cleansing or maybe it's PKO and CO which would be a nice mix as well.


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## DeeAnna (Sep 21, 2015)

That's true -- in the regular consumer world, castile is basically an all-veg oil soap and that's the way Kirks and Bronners use the word to sell their soaps. In fact there was a 1932 legal battle in the US that gave credence to this meaning of the word out in the real world.

But in the soaping world, at least what I've seen of it, castile usually carries its original more-specific meaning of a 100% olive oil soap. I can accept both meanings of castile, but each in its own respective context. 

Maybe Lee, who is perhaps a newish soaper, is using the word more generically to mean an all veg oil soap, but when I say castile in the context of talking about handcrafted soap, I mean very specifically a 100% olive oil soap and I think most other soapers I can think of will tend to do likewise.

It's kind of like "assault and battery" -- the term means something very specific to a lawyer and means something related but much less precise to everyone else.


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## Lee242 (Sep 22, 2015)

100% olive oil soap Is what I'm thinking also.


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## Lee242 (Oct 1, 2015)

How would 50% olive oil and 50% CO work for laundry


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## DeeAnna (Oct 1, 2015)

Everyone is telling you they use mostly or all coconut oil for laundry soap and we're giving you the reasons why -- we're not just blowing hot air atcha. You've come back with this recipe at 50% coconut oil. All I can say is ... try it, Lee. I'm sure it can be used in a washing machine, but whether it will get your clothes as clean as you like is your call. You can only know if it works for you if you try.


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## Susie (Oct 2, 2015)

Lee242 said:


> Most of the recipes for laundry soap use castile soap and other bought additives.
> I thought that coconut oil would make the soap to foamy for modern machines.



No hand made soap will ever have the amount of bubbling that synthetic detergents create.  Go ahead and use the 100% CO with 0-0.5% SF.


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## The Efficacious Gentleman (Oct 2, 2015)

^^^ very much so - I cleaned another old laundry detergent bottle today (to use as a sodium citrate holder) and the amount of bubbles from the left overs in there was crazy when compared to the bubbles that would have come from the same amount of 100% co soap


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## Lee242 (Oct 2, 2015)

This is the part that confuses me (Castile soap to me is 100% Olive Oil) most of the recipes I look at start with,  (1 bar castile soap (grated))  


    100% CO sounds like the way to go.
Thank you all for the come back.
Lee


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## DeeAnna (Oct 2, 2015)

Yeah, but that is what the outside non-soaper world does. The "start with a bar of Fels Naptha" recipe for laundry mix is like those cake recipes that layer a store-bought cake mix with store-bought cherry pie filling and such. There's nothing wrong with that -- it tastes better than a ready made cake -- but this kind of recipe is definitely not "from scratch" cooking.

There are real soapers here who know how to do this task "from scratch" and do it right. That's why you're getting different advice than what you read "out there." :mrgreen:


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## Lee242 (Oct 3, 2015)

A bar of CO  castile soap 5oz
A box of washing soda
A box of borax
Baking soda
Will this work or modify it for powdered laundry soap?


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## The Efficacious Gentleman (Oct 4, 2015)

Have you also been reading the other laundry soap threads going on recently? Look for the big post from DeeAnna, with some top tips. That will say to drop the borax and the baking powder. 

Please stop thinking in terms of 'a bar' and 'a box' and get in to using weights and weights alone. And from a clarity point, 100% CO is not Castile - Castile is just 100% olive oil.


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## DawninWA (Oct 12, 2015)

The recipes call for bars of castile soap, but they're usually using dr bronners (mostly coconut with a few other oils) or Kirk's Castile (coconut).

That said, my current laundry soap is mostly olive oil castile.  I made some soap for laundry a while ago, it was probably 50% lard, 25% coconut and 25% olive oil (0% superfat).  And when I went to make up the laundry soap, I used the wrong bar, I used a 100% olive oil bar.  Got my clothes clean.  I discovered my mistake a couple days later and I was worried that it wasn't strong enough, so I added some of the original lard/olive/coconut soap to it.  Works incredibly well, but I am very sensitive to coconut oil, and I think it may be causing some skin irritation even in such a small amount.  I may make some again and use only the olive oil soap.


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## Lee242 (Oct 12, 2015)

Is there a name for other than castile soap that is 100% CO or 100% Lard Ect?


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## DeeAnna (Oct 12, 2015)

They're simply soap, Lee. Just soap. There are no fancy names for most types of soap. The only real way to know if a soap is made from lard or palm or coconut or whatever is to read the ingredients list. 

You can't go by the name "castile" when looking at the packages in the store. As we've already discussed, the word "castile" has been bast**dized to mean a soap made with all vegetable oils, but to know specifically WHAT those veg oils are ... you gotta read the ingredients list.


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## Lee242 (Oct 13, 2015)

Thanks for clearing that up. I'll remember that.


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