Castile Soap

[DSC]

G'day all...

Can anyone point me in the direction of a recipe for Authentic Castile Soap?

I've searched online, and seem to find recipes that start by saying that the traditional Castile originated in Spain and only uses olive oil - at which point they then give you a recipe that contains either palm oil, coconut oil or engine oil!

I just want (read NEEED) to try making this beast - does anyone know a recipe that contains only the original ingredients.

I promise not to dress in chainmail nor call myself Don Quiote...

Thanks for any help,

Paul

 

[carebear]

]

only uses olive oil,

Paul

there ya go, Paul

Be sure to use a lye calculator, there are several great ones online.

 

[DSC]

So no water either then - that's non-authentic too?!?!!!

My goodness - what is the world coming to, that even water is an ugly additive!

I take back the chainmail promise - I need to go forth into battle!

 

[carebear]

So no water either then - that's non-authentic too?!?!!!

My goodness - what is the world coming to, that even water is an ugly additive!

I take back the chainmail promise - I need to go forth into battle!

Well, you do need to get the lye and water amounts yourself, use a lye calculator. As I mentioned, use a lye calculator.

You need more than just a recipe, you needn't know HOW to make soap - it's not cake or salad, you need to be careful. Try starting at millersoap.com.

 

[DSC]

Well, you do need to get the lye and water amounts yourself, use a lye calculator. As I mentioned, use a lye calculator.

You need more than just a recipe, you needn't know HOW to make soap - it's not cake or salad, you need to be careful. Try starting at millersoap.com.

So, there is water in Castile soap?

 

[DSC]

So, there is water in Castile soap?

It seems that there is equal measure of water and OO - with a tad more water for premixing the lye in (although in the recipe I found, they're adding water to the lye!!)...

And it seems no stick blenders, just slow, methodical hand work...

 

[AmyW]

Castile soap is just soap that has all or (in the US) mostly Olive Oil. To make the Olive Oil into soap, you have to add lye. The lye has to be added to a liquid - usually water. After the lye is dissolved in the liquid, it's added to the oil and blended (yes you can do it by hand, but most of us have lives so we use a stick blender to speed it up so we can move on) until it traces - leaves a trail in the soap. Then it's poured into molds, allowed to harden, removed from the molds, cut, and since Olive Oil takes a long time to cure, it sits and cures for a long time. Some say 6 weeks, some say 3 months, or even 6 months.

You can't just willy-nilly throw together oil, water and lye to make soap. You have to use an exact recipe and follow proper soap making procedures. If you don't, you could get seriously injured by both the lye and the "soap" that you made. If it is lye heavy, anyone who uses it will be seriously hurt.

Read up on how to make soap - the procedures are the same for ALL bar soap. The only thing that changes is the recipe.

Read millersoap.com
Learn how to use a lye calculator, like this one:
http://www.soapcalc.net/calc/SoapCalcWP.asp
Here's some videos about lye safety and soap making:
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yR6ttCSrLJI"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yR6ttCSrLJI[/ame]
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP7mvbAdYWc"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP7mvbAdYWc[/ame]

 

[JackiK]

I found a recipe on eHow.com that only calls for sunflower oil, KOH and water. Just go to eHow and search for Liquid Castile Soap. I HAVE NOT TRIED THIS RECIPE.

 

[carebear]

Ok there seem to be some gaps in knowledge and communication so let me start again.

Soap recipes should give the proportion of oils, but generally not the amounts since the amounts will depend on the size of the mold you use. Most good ones don't provide lye or water amounts either since you will need to check them for yourself anyway (many that do give amounts give the wrong amounts and result in crap, sometimes unsafe crap).

So the oils proportions for castile is 100% olive oil. Technically it still won't be Genuine Castile soap since it's not made in Castile, but unless you want to travel it's likely as close as you can get.

To actually make the soap is relatively simple, but there are basic instructions you need to follow. To learn more about those, do some reading. I recommend millersoap.com. There are many other places to learn - google will be your best friend for a while.

You can use a stick blender for castile - in fact I highly recommend it.

To summarize
- the recipe is 100% olive oil (you will have to figure out your lye and water yourself, based on the amount of oil you use).

Good luck.

 

[carebear]

So, there is water in Castile soap?

It seems that there is equal measure of water and OO - with a tad more water for premixing the lye in (although in the recipe I found, they're adding water to the lye!!)...

...

This is as close to dangerously wrong as I have seen. Where did you find it?

 

[GreenScene]

I'll only add that unless you want your arm to fall off, you should definitely consider a stick blender for making castile soap. That stuff will take forever to trace. If you absolutely must do it by hand, you might want to try pomace (a low-grade type of olive oil you wouldn't want to cook with but which works well for soap making). It's quicker to trace than extra-virgin, for example. And yes...please...read up on and take the precautions necessary to keep you and anyone who uses the soap safe!

 

[soapbuddy]

If you decide to stir by hand, please don't use a wooden spoon. It will splinter and those splinters will end up in your soap. Stick blender is soooo much easier.

 

[cleanwater]

So, there is water in Castile soap?

It seems that there is equal measure of water and OO - with a tad more water for premixing the lye in (although in the recipe I found, they're adding water to the lye!!)...

...

This is as close to dangerously wrong as I have seen. Where did you find it?

I agree with everything carebear and the rest have said. I would add just one more piece of caution/advice:

Please, please, please, after you do your additional reading and research, and after you go run a soapcalc to find the right amount of lye and water for the amount of oil you're using, please add the lye (slowly and carefully) to the water and not the other way around. Pouring water into a container of lye can create a crust over the bulk of the lye resulting in a potentially explosive and very dangerous (to you) situation.

 

[DSC]

Thanks to you all for taking the time to reply, but my gawd, it sounds like Castile is the most volatile substance known to man!

Apart from being harder to trace, and as such potentially more time consuming, surely it can't overly different to any other type of soap I've made??

 

[GreenScene]

Thanks to you all for taking the time to reply, but my gawd, it sounds like Castile is the most volatile substance known to man!

Apart from being harder to trace, and as such potentially more time consuming, surely it can't overly different to any other type of soap I've made??

It's not. I don't think anyone is implying it's that volatile. Just that you should take the appropriate precautions to make sure you and your soap are safe.

 

[AmyW]

DSC, what kind of soaps have you made? M&P or have you made CP (with lye) soaps? CP is quite a bit different than M&P and does require safety precautions because of the lye. The final soap, if made properly is as safe and pure as anything I can think of.

 

[carebear]

Thanks to you all for taking the time to reply, but my gawd, it sounds like Castile is the most volatile substance known to man!

Apart from being harder to trace, and as such potentially more time consuming, surely it can't overly different to any other type of soap I've made??

If you've been making soap using caustic (lye) and oils then this should all be old news. Is that the kind od soap you've made? If yes then just use only olive oil with your lye and water and proceed. Just be sure to calculate the proper amount of lye and water for your particular oil and a amount of oil.

But I suspect you are missing the point, perhaps purposefully which is why this thread is at risk of being locked.

Soap isn't dangerous but the caustic used to make it IS. any soap, not specifically. Soap making is chemistry - you don't just run amok in a lab with caustic material. You aren't baking a cake.

Research the process and the ingredients. Use a lye calculator to determine the amounts you need. Get some goggles and an immersion blender. Then make soap.

 

[newbie]

I've been following this post and the whole thing has made me nervous and curious about the OP and how these questions have come up. I'm all for locking it. I know you are just waiting for my opinion and all on that (sarcasm), but it seems like the questions have been answered.

 

[AmyW]

But I suspect you are missing the point, perhaps purposefully which is why this thread is at risk of being locked.

I'm glad it wasn't just my spidey senses that smelled something strange.

 

[DSC]

You know, I've thought of numerous ways to address the direction of this thread, but decided that it just isn't worth the effort in going as far as a part of me thinks I should...

You see, according to some of the members here, it seems that the Devil makes Castile Soap and he does so in Australia - or at least he can now that a Professional soap maker was very gracious and gave him a recipe to follow:

XX amount of olive oil
XX amount of water &
XX amount of lye

And apparently no harder to trace than anything else, but must be cured for much longer. The sentiments of some genuine posters here were echoed - as in use a stick blender.

No points were missed, only those identified by a moderator who took the thread off on a personal tangent about the dangers of lye (a battle cry heard by other forum members who did valiently enter into the fray to save the world from an impending catastrophe).

No sinister ambitions were snuck onto these virtuous pages; only just a simple request for a recipe that was seemingly too great for mere mortals to answer...

You see, that is what a recipe is - a list of quantified ingredients accompanied by specific instructions on how to co-join them. Fortunately for me, my saviour didn't give two hoots about what mold I want to use, they didn't question my intellectual capacity to use a measuring scales, nor were they concerned about what phase of the lunar cycle we're in...

Newbie, I hope in time you find the strength to steady those shattered nerves - given that this particular devil won't be returning to such an unfriendly place, your journey to recovery should be smooth.

Amy - thank god for your spidey senses - who knows where this forum could have ended up: in the depths of deprivation and purgatory I should only imagine.

Now if you'll excuse me, but I have been pointed in the direction of a sinner wandering the streets in need of washing his transgressions away - and I'm hopeful he'll trade his soul for a bar of Castile...