DIY Castile Soap: the base for most home cleaners

I made my own castile soap, sort of. I didn't really want to buy KOH (or lye), and let my soap sit for 4-6 weeks before I used it. I found this tutorial and thought it was an amazing short cut for liquid castile. Here's the link: http://gfbff.com/tips-and-tricks/diy-100-olive-oil-castile-soap

I used my blender to grate the olive oil soap, added the water, let it sit for a while, used it for other home cleaning recipes and put the rest into a 1 gallon washed and sterilized white vinegar container. To get the vinegar smell out of the container, put a squirt of any mustard in the container, fill 1/4 way full with warm water and shake. I'm not sure why mustard removes smells, but it does - with any container and any smell. It's pretty incredible!

Back to the castile soap: I also wanted to tell whomever is reading this that the castile soap doesn't magically turn out like Dr. Bronners. It's thick, opaque, and a green tint. The thickness to me just means that I can add more distilled water and make it go further - BONUS. I'm not interested in having clear soap necessarily so it doesn't bother me. I use this castile as the base for my all purpose cleaner, floor spot cleaner, dish soap, foaming hand soap, body wash and shampoo (if you're into the sudsy shampoos).

Castile deserves a post to itself, and it can take 24-48 hours to emulsify. Have some patience, it's worth the wait! Here's the breakdown of cost:

2 bars Kiss My Face Olive Oil Soap             $2.99/ea       = $5.98

1 gallon Distilled Water                                 $0.85/ea        = $0.85

With tax it equaled about $7.50 for a GALLON (or more) of castile soap (compare to $20ish of Dr. Bronners). Not only that, you know what's in it, which is seriously important as our skin absorbs what we put on it!

Here's the recipe:

Liquid Castile Soap

large bowl

gallon of distilled water

blender

cutting board and sharp knife

8 ounce bar Kiss My Face Pure Olive Oil Soap

Measure and pour 4 cups of the distilled water in the bowl.

Using a sharp knife, cut the soap into smaller pieces

Place the soap shavings in the blender and grate/shred, then put into bowl and stir the shavings and the water together.

Place a lid or a towel over the bowl to prevent dust, air, pet hair from getting in.

Original Directions:

Let sit for 24 hours then stir again.

Let sit for another 24 hours if necessary. The liquid soap should be smooth and emulsified. (If it’s not, give it a stir and another 24 hours. If you find the liquid is still too thick, add another 1/2 cup distilled water until it is the consistency you desire.)

When complete, put the liquid soap into your desired container.

Lazy Directions:

I have to be honest with you, I let mine sit for a couple hours, used the thick concentrate for a bunch of other recipes and poured the rest of it into my gallon container and figured I could shake it today if it needed it. It’s thick so I added a couple cups of water to it, shook it and it’s going to sit again until tomorrow. It seemed completely emulsified before I started using it in recipes, perhaps that was due to me using a blender to grate it. Make sure your blender is crazy and completely dry before you grate it. I also used this technique for a goats milk soap that Matt LOVES, but I wanted to make the $5 bar go farther so I turned it into liquid body wash and it worked well! It's still too thick so I'm going to continue adding more water to that one too!

Enjoy!