Castille Soap - ???

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So for those of you that have made a 100% Olive Oil soap...........which kind of olive oil did you use. I see that some of you like it and some hate it. I wonder if the type of oil may have anything to do with that. Probably not. Its probably just personal preference. But I am curious none the less. I use just plain Olive Oil. Not Pomace, Virgin or Extra Virgin.
 
Most of my soaps have been high OO content and I either buy what ever is on sale, typically EVOO but I also use use the Organic EVOO from Essentials Wholesale and Labs if I'm getting stuff there anyway. I'll have to take some samples with me for my next shower to test the difference head to head.
 
I believe castile is only 100% olive oil, and I've actually gone on so many rants about that fact.... The Dr Bronners especially irritates me because thats so popular and so now everyone thinks THATS what castile is.

After reading a post here, I'm going to be making a castile soap for next years christmas presents lol. My boyfriend and I were going to make a castile and leave it for 6 months, but when I read someone did that last year I thought it was a really good idea. With castile though I'd never thought too much into the liquid, and that only water would be castile. So I've been thinking about making a 100% olive oil soap with pumpkin for full water for next christmas. I'm still batting around ideas though.
 
I believe castile is only 100% olive oil, and I've actually gone on so many rants about that fact.... The Dr Bronners especially irritates me because thats so popular and so now everyone thinks THATS what castile is.


How about Kirk's "Coco Castile" Ingredients: Coconut soap...
 
"At least Kirks has a little blurb on the label that historically castile was made with olive oil"

Didn't notice that. There I go with my unfounded condemnations...

"Really? "Coco Castile"? That's just crazy...
icon_crazy.gif
I now blame Kirks for the downfall of society! "

Dogs and cats LIVING TOGETHER!
 
Its possible the blurb is on their website, I went there trying to find out what scent their "castile" is. Kirks is one of the only soaps I still buy and it mostly so I can smell it or make it into laundry paste since I'm too lazy to make 100% CO soap myself.
 
I agree with you, but it's not a term that has been defined by the FDA, so people can call any kind of soap "castile" that they want to. When I make my soap I will label it "Castille - 100% Olive Oil".
 
Curious, how much OO do you all need to consider a soap a bastile? OO is always my main oil, my base recipe is 61% OO and I don't consider it a bastile.

To me a Castile is 100% OO, water and lye and a Bastile is 72% or above OO, and "whatever" for the rest.

Why 72% should be the cutting off point, I have absolutely no idea, but I just assumed that there was a "rule" or tradition that made it so. Some even advertise their soaps as being with 72% and you can even get soap stamps that say 72%, so I just assumed that that precise percentage gave the soap some super duper magical qualities that can't be explained by reason or soapcalc, but just "are". Who knows? Not me.

Anything below 72% OO would then just be.... soap? LOL
 
TRUE Purists are an OCD persons dream! :):) If I didn't make my own soap I would want to be sure to get to know any soapmaker I bought from.......because obviously everyone defines things differently.

This became very clear to me the other day when I went to check out a local source. I thought I would be able to buy a 5 gal bucket of coconut oil there. But when they brought it out, the label had a bunch of additives in the ingredients.....even an "Anti-foaming" agent. To me coconut is the last oil that would need preserving unless they were using a very low grade. And "anti-foaming".......well I add coconut oil because I WANT bubbling! LOL!!! They told me that they have been selling quite a few buckets to soapers. I just shook my head and said "I can't". I ordered from Soapers Choice. Maybe that makes me a "snotty" soaper......if so, so be it. I have to be confident in what goes into my soap. We make our soap so we don't have to have any possibility of unnecessary additives. My girl with skin issues certainly doesn't need any help with unknown things adding to her issues.

Sorry for the rant!!! :silent:
 
I'm gonna start a personal tradition of making a big batch of 100% pure Castile on New Years not to be touched till the next. My 6 month Castile is super nice.

I love this idea! I am going to make a big batch now and give it out next Christmas, maybe with "100% Olive Oil - aged 1 year" on the label.

I don't love the olive oil smell so I will probably scent it with lavender, though.
 
TRUE Purists are an OCD persons dream! :):) If I didn't make my own soap I would want to be sure to get to know any soapmaker I bought from.......because obviously everyone defines things differently.

This became very clear to me the other day when I went to check out a local source. I thought I would be able to buy a 5 gal bucket of coconut oil there. But when they brought it out, the label had a bunch of additives in the ingredients.....even an "Anti-foaming" agent. To me coconut is the last oil that would need preserving unless they were using a very low grade. And "anti-foaming".......well I add coconut oil because I WANT bubbling! LOL!!!
Sorry for the rant!!! :silent:

Coconut oil is often used for frying, popping popcorn, etc, so an anti foaming agent would make sense. but not for a soaper!

I know a lot of soapers add ROE to their soap as a preservative, but I too like my soap sort of "minimal". I don't add salt or sugar or sodium lactate, etc.
 
I make 100% olive oil Castile for my little sister. She has all kinds of skin allergies and that is the only kind she uses. Sometimes I add oatmeal and honey...she seems to like it. A few months ago I showed her how to make it herself. She did everything but measure out the lye. The poor girl's hands were shaking so bad I had to do it for her. When she was making her soap she mentioned that she liked the smell if lemon so I let her add a little FO to the batch. Still have a few more months to go to see how her skin will like scented soap. She wears perfumes and body sprays so I think she'll be okay. It's mainly coconut oil she has a reaction too... Anyway back to the subject... I use regular olive oil for my soap making. I don't really like how EVOO soaps.
 
To me a Castile is 100% OO, water and lye and a Bastile is 72% or above OO, and "whatever" for the rest.

Why 72% should be the cutting off point, I have absolutely no idea, but I just assumed that there was a "rule" or tradition that made it so. Some even advertise their soaps as being with 72% and you can even get soap stamps that say 72%, so I just assumed that that precise percentage gave the soap some super duper magical qualities that can't be explained by reason or soapcalc, but just "are". Who knows? Not me.

Anything below 72% OO would then just be.... soap? LOL


I was reading on another thread here that the 72% could mean the percentage of oils in the total soap recipe (i.e. amt of oil compared to oil+water+lye), which equals to about 72% in soapcalc.....
 
Okay! While it does sound really plausible, I can't really get that to fit. I fiddled around on soapcalc for a while and the closest I could get to a soap+lye+water ratio that fit was 100% OO at 5% SF and a 2:1 water:lye ratio, BUT the numbers were just a teensy bit off and I just couldn't fiddle my way to getting the numbers to fit exactly. If folks are going to have soap stamps made that say 72% and not 72.1 or 71.9 then being the stickler that I am I would expect the numbers to fit exactly.

So I went searching and here's what I came up with. A Castile is, as we probably mostly all agree on, made using only OO, water and lye. (It's spelled with only one "l" officially, because it's named after a Spanish town.)

A Bastile, is supposedly "unofficially" 90% OO and just one other oil, that oil being either Castor or Coconut. (That would make sense. It's very close to being a Castile, without actually being one, so the name ******* Castile fits with that.) In more recent times, it has though come to describe any soap with mostly OO and a blend of other oils for the rest.

A 72% OO soap is called a Savon de Marseille or Marseille soap! According to French law (oooh la la!) any soap labeled as a Marseille soap must contain a minimum of 72% OO, Copra Oil (?) or Palm oil and have no fragrance or colour added. (I don't know what Copra Oil is, I've never heard of it and again, why is exactly 72% the cutting off point?? Back to square one!) Anyway, the soaps are usually cut into cubes. Here's some more;

"The first recipe for Marseille soap can be found in the 1751 Encyclopédie by Diderot and d'Alembert. By French law, any soap called "Marseille" must be made with a minimum of 72% vegetable oil and have no fragrance or colour added to it. Soap is made by mixing oil, water and soda and boiling them in huge caldrons for 6 or 7 days. At that time, the soap acquires a violet scent. When olive oil is used, the paste shows a green coloration; when other vegetable oils are used, the paste is yellow-beige. The mixture is then placed in low basins and left to dry for about two weeks when it is ready to be cut and stamped, either by hand or by machine."

So going by that, if a soap doesn't comply with those rules, I suppose a 72% (or above) OO soap could rightly be considered to be a ******* Marseille... or a Barseille Soap! (Haha! How many think that name would catch on? LOL! )

That's all I got! :)

Edit: A 100% OO soap at 5% SF and a H20:lye ratio of 2:1 makes OO 71,85528% of the recipe. Fiddling with the SF and H20:lye ratio just gives multiples after the decimal on those values instead. (If the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit.)
 
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