Castile Soap

[cursivearts]

Back on the castile (because I am planning on trying some after I try a salt bar), how long do you leave it in the mold usually before you remove it? And how long do you give it before you cut it? Is it super soft coming out of the mold?

And on the fruit and veggie soaps you guys talk about, I would worry the fruit or veggie would rot in the soap, even blended in? That doesn't happen?

 

[Lotus]

Cursive. From what I've read, Castile soaps are supposed to take longer to set and harden and all of that. Almost all of my batches of everything are very hard (including and even especially my Castile) very quickly. I do use EVOO, however. I wonder if I'll see a difference if I just use regular.

About the rotting fruit. That's what I found when I looked it up. Apparently, if you don't purée it, it will rot, but if you do, it won't. So far, it still looks good.

Now I want to go to the store and get some regular olive oil.

 

[cursivearts]

If you have a membership to Costco or the like, you can get regular OO decently cheap there. I got 6 liters (not quite 2 gallons, so close to 14 lbs) of it for 25$ yesterday. I've used it before and it works just as beautifully as the pomace I get from WSP and the like.

I don't think I'm ready to try fruit yet. Salt bar first, then castile. Then I'll pretty much be out of my main oils until my shipments come in (unless I want to make tons of castile). What I really need to figure out is where I'm going to cure all of this....

 

[Lotus]

Cursive. Thanks! I always figured Costco was the place to go. Haven't had a membership in years. But my mother always says she's happy to pick something up for me from there, if I like. I wonder what other oils they might have in bulk.

Do you think the EVOO might be the culprit for all this hardness? (Ha, I know, "she said" and all that)

By the way, I just bought one of these. They're stackable, so you can just keep buying them until you run out of room.

http://m.target.com/p/whitmor-stacking-shelf-with-basket/-/A-11678015

 

[daisy8]

I did carrot soap about 10 weeks ago - pureed it first and used frozen carrot juice as water. The soap turned out really nicely. Have also done grapes, but that didn't do so well. The lye turned the pureed grapes, brown. There is probably a way around that though.

 

[cursivearts]

They have coconut, though I still don't find the prices near as good as ordering from somewhere like WSP, with free shipping, but in a pinch and out of oil.... I also saw grapeseed, canola and a few other vegetable oils.

If you want to try luxury oils, I recommend the local health food store. The one near me sells lots of stuff in bulk and they carry red, green and white french clays and bentonite and beeswax along with colorants like turmeric, dried lavender buds. But I also noticed they had evening primrose, jojoba and all kinds of other oils. Yes, they were expensive, but they are expensive everywhere and if you just want to try a bit...The luxury oils weren't in bulk btw, they just sell them. Though they did have sweet almond oil in bulk, so you could buy 1 oz or 5 or even a lb to try. And I think they had apricot kernal oil too.

 

[Lotus]

Yeah, my local health food store sells most of what you listed, if not all. I want to ask an employee, to make sure I'm not missing something. I wonder what whole foods has. There's a really big store downtown. Think I'll head down there on payday. : )

 

[Candybee]

Castile is a centuries old recipe for soapmaking. The reason why its still around is that it makes a fabulous bar of the most gentle soap. Probably the gentlest of all soaps. So gentle babies and people with sensitive skin can use it without irratation.

My favorite castile recipe is 90% olive oil and 10% castor oil. Technically its not a true castile but rather what many call a bastile. But these days the castile soap has evolved so thats why you see recipes with other oils and additives.

I also love, love, love, my goat milk and honey castile. I use the same recipe above but sub goat milk for my liquid and add about .50oz of honey per lb of soap oils.

For my coconut castile, I use 75% olive oil, 20% coconut oil, 5% castor oil. I use coconut milk and honey in this recipe.

When I make my castile soaps I always do a water discount. This helps it get harder faster and I don't have to wait as long to unmold and cut.

 

[cursivearts]

We have a Whole Foods and I've been there recently. I was able to find goat milk there and I bet you would be able to find fragrance oils and luxury oils in their bath sections, but I didn't see any bulk stuff such as herbs and spices, like the local health food store had. Then again, I wasn't thinking to look that closely though I did go through most of their bath and body section.