Simple liquid Castile soap and its uses.

I posted a while ago about making my own liquid castile soap and someone asked about this and so I promised to do a post.

This is a cheats liquid soap but as liquid castile soap is very expensive to buy I am happy to cheat.

I make this from my own handmade soap – I know not everyone wants to make their own soap but that doesn’t have to be a problem.   You can buy bars of castile soap and make your own liquid castile soap from it and it will still be much cheaper than buying liquid castile soap.

I do make a lot of different soaps but the bars I use to make liquid castile soap out of are a simple bar made of coconut oil, olive oil, sodium hydroxide, water  and essential oils.  This makes a very simple, moisturising soap with a good lather.  True castile soap would not have coconut oil in it, it would be made with just olive oil, water and sodium hydroxide.  The addition of coconut oil makes for a firmer bar and a better lather.   I always make my liquid castile soap out of my homemade simple soap with lavender.

I realise I am slightly guilty of putting the cart before the horse and I should perhaps do a blog showing how I make the soap before I show you have to make liquid castile soap from the soap, but I don’t need to make any more soap for a little while but I did need some liquid soap today so……

Whether you are using your own soap or bought castile soap bars all the equipment needed to make that bar in to liquid castile soap is here:

A glass jar

A whisk

A knife

A chopping board

and (not in the picture) some boiling water.

First step – weigh your bar of soap and then chop finely (or grate) it:

Put the chopped soap in the bottom of the glass jar, weigh out boiling water to double the weight of the soap and pour on top of the soap, give it a good whisk:

You then leave this for a couple of days (so you do need to plan ahead).   Try to give it a quick swish with the whisk every now and then – but it is not a disaster if you forget.  Eventually the cubes of soap ‘melt’ (obviously the smaller the pieces of soap the quicker the soap is ready) and you end up with a gloopy thick liquid soap which you can then water down to use as you wish.  I don’t have a photo of this stage as I only did this today.   You can make the whole batch thinner straight away by adding more water or you can leave it as a thicker gloop and water it down as you use it.   Whilst this was made with a soap that had lavender essential oil in it anyway I do tend to add a few extra drops of lavender to the soap once I have liquefied it.

You only need look on line to see the many, many uses for liquid castile soap.  Some of my uses for this soap are:

1. Regular liquid soap dispenser at kitchen sink

2.  Mix up a thin batch and put in an old shampoo bottle and use as shampoo.  I haven’t bought shampoo for four years, not since I started making my own soap and making my own liquid castile soap.   If I have neglected to make up a batch of liquid castile soap I will often use one of my own soaps as a shampoo bar and just rub it round my head a few times but I do like the ritual of a ‘shampoo’ bottle – filled with my own liquid soap.

3.  Moisturising facial wash – I put four tablespoons of liquid castile soap in a small pump dispenser bottle, add one tablespoon of oil and give a good shake (my preference is rice bran oil but sweet almond or apricot kernel is good too).  This will separate when it settles so you do need to give it a shake before each use but it is a very nice, gentle, moisturising facial wash.

4.  As liquid soap for washing woollens and delicates – a scoop of my own liquid castile soap goes in the soap dispenser of the washing machine when I am washing woollens or delicate items in place of regular washing powder.

There are many other uses for liquid castile soap but the above are my main uses.

I hope this might be of help to someone.  I will make a post out of my next soap making day – which will be in the next couple of weeks.

Until tomorrow…

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