I used the apostrophe on each side of the word castile because this is not a true castile in the strictest sense of the name. True castile is made solely with olive oil and no other oil. This batch is actually made with coconut oil in addition to the olive for the cleansing attributes it brings to the formulation as well as a nice foaming action. It also has no superfat because this is intended solely for the purpose of being a part of household cleansers, not skin care. If it was intended for personal use as a bath wash or hand wash, it would have included a lye discount of about 6% to be sure it was gentle of the skin.
Below you see melted oils in the crockpot (the marks are from the metal spoons I used to use) and the KOH & water solution is on the right before I got the process started. As stated before it’s a blend of coconut oil and olive oil melted on warm in the crock pot while the lye solution cools slightly. Once the oils were melted, the heat was turned off. It’s not really that important to cool it down so much, but I like to work with it at a cool temp for my own comfort.
The lye was added and stick blended until emulsified and slightly thickened. It will continue to thicken since it’s at this point that I turn the heat back on to warm and will stick blend periodically until it reaches a light to medium trace stage. This takes a bit longer with this blend due to the high amount of olive oil.
This was the point at which I added the glycerin. I then gave it a good turn over with a sturdy spoon, placed the lid on and set the heat to low. This is a slightly higher temp than warm, but it’s time for the cook and the vaseline stage is what we’re looking for next, so warm it is! The thick soap looks chunky because it is! After it was stick blended, and the two additional liquid added, it firmed a bit so it was chopped with a dedicated knife.
The cook time was about an hour and a half with stirs done every twenty minutes or so. Maybe a bit longer while I was washing up my utensils, but no harm done with the additional time. A quick test with phenolphthalein proved it to be done with saponification.
Now you can see that it has become slightly translucent, which is gel stage for a cooked soap (otherwise known as hot process when making bars) so now is the time to add the additional dilution water, cover, turn it to warm again and let it do its thing overnight while the thunderstorm rolls through. There’s just something extra special about making soap when it’s stormy, don’t you think? Very relaxing.
When the liquid is done, it will be poured into a large container and used for creating floor cleaners, liquid laundry soap, dish soap, and many other cleansers used around the house. Of course preservative will be added once this batch has cooled to below 140 degrees. As for whether it’s scented, we’ll see. I might like to have a scent in some of it but likely not all.
I just don’t like the harsh, often dangerous chemicals in most commercially made cleansers available now. So many contain things that are harmful to your health in numerous ways, it’s hard to know what to choose anymore, so a DIY seems the best solution now. Given my own personal health situation, it’s more important than ever that I reduce the amount of toxic substances in and around my house. We’ll follow up when it’s used in some of the formulations for the cleansers to see how they work.
