Liquid Castile Soap Begins
For years we’ve lathered up with Dr. Bronner’s Baby-Mild Liquid Castile Soap. Mikah uses it for his primary soap — ever since we figured out that his sensitive eczema-prone skin needs mild cleansers. And Jeff uses it for shaving and washing. It is a wonderfully mild, fragrance free (yet great great smelling) soap. We used to use the bars of it, too, before I started making my own bar soap.
Bearing a price tag of about $35 per gallon, the liquid soap is worth it, in my opinion. But since I make our bar soap, I think it is time to make our liquid soap, too. Even though I haven’t calculated the savings yet, I’m fairly confident it won’t cost me $35 to generate a gallon of liquid soap.
Making liquid soap requires Potassium Hydroxide, rather than the Sodium Hydroxide that bar soap needs. I found it online from The Soap Dish, one of the few places online that carries this liquid soap making caustic. After I placed my order last week, I received the sweetest email from the owner. I love doing business with kind people. She shipped my order right away and it arrived yesterday.
I have never made liquid soap before. It is somewhat of a different process than making bar soap, although the beginning steps are similar. But liquid soap “cooks” much longer, resulting in a paste, which must then be diluted and neutralized with boric acid or borax. I searched this morning for more details regarding the process and found a great tutorial. I will be following the procedure shared in this tutorial, but using the oils I usually use in castile soap — olive, almond, castor, coconut, palm kernel and/or grapeseed. I ran the oils through a lye calculator to make sure I am using the right amount of lye for these oils.
I’ll be back to let you know how it goes…
Picture courtesy of The Vitamin Shoppe.
I would love to know how it turns out. I made liquid soap years and years ago. So long that I’m not sure I remember anything about it, I’d have to dig up my recipes. But I do hope yours turns out well.
Well… it’s definitely different! It took 30 minutes to trace. It was like curds & whey and then all of a sudden it was solid and started bubbling over in the crockpot. I’m keeping a close eye on it. I also almost burned out my stick blender; it got so hot I had to use a hot pad to hold it! I’m hoping for the best… I’ll let you know! If you have a castile soap recipe, I’d love it if you’d share. Love, Wardeh
I admire people who make their own soap. That is one thing I’d rather not do. Wouldn’t mind helping someone do it, though.
If you were only here, I would love the help! Love, Wardeh