DIY Liquid Castile (Bastille) Soap
You can make your own liquid castile (Bastille) soap at home! Just make sure you use the correct lye (potassium hydroxide) in this recipe. It takes some time, but is totally worth the cost-savings!
Ingredients
- 680 grams Olive Oil (24 oz)
- 454 grams Coconut Oil (16 oz)
- 265 grams Potassium Hydroxide Lye (9.35 oz)
- 14-16 cups water distilled or tap, divided
- 1 oz. Essential Oil of Choice (2 Tbsp.) optional
Instructions
Combine the Oils
- Add the olive oil and coconut oil to your crock pot, set it to High, and let the coconut oil melt completely into the olive oil.
Make the Lye Solution
- Put 4 cups of distilled or tap water into a glass or stainless steel bowl in your sink. Don safety goggles and nitrile gloves, make sure your area is well-ventilated (I open my kitchen window and turn my stove hood fan to high), and then carefully add your potassium hydroxide (lye) to your water—NEVER add water to lye, only add lye to water.
- Let lye completely dissolve in the water.
Add Lye Solution to the Oils
- Once dissolved, carefully pour the dissolved lye solution into the melted oil in the crock pot, still wearing long sleeves, gloves, goggles and keeping the area well-ventilated. Try not to splash the lye solution as you pour. The mixture in your crock pot is not called "trace."
Blend the Trace
- Keep all your protective equipment on (gloves, eye protection) and blend the trace with the stick blender until it gets thicker, about 5-10 minutes.
- Let it cook for 5 minutes and then come back and blend with the stick blender. You’ll repeat this for the next 30 minutes, letting it cook for 5 minutes, and then blending, etc. until the mixture gets too thick to blend with the stick blender.
Cook the Thick Trace
- Once the mixture is too thick to mix with the stick blender, stir with a silicone scraper, put the lid on the crock pot and let it cook, still on High.
- Come back to it every 30 minutes and give it a stir. It’ll continue to thicken, bubble, and change from milky to translucent.
- After 3-6 hours, stirring every 30 minutes, your mixture should look more translucent. You should even be able to read through it when smeared on a piece of newspaper.
Clarification Test for Saponification
- Take out a spoonful of cooked soap base, about the size of a golf ball and put in into a clear glass jar.
- Add 1/2 cup of boiling water and stir to dissolve all the soap and let it cool.
- Your liquid should be clear, not opaque at all. If it is opaque or if you get oil floating on top, continue cooking your soap, stirring every 30 minutes, and test again.
Dilute the Soap Paste
- After the soap paste passes the clarification paste, add 10 cups of distilled or tap water to the soap in the crock pot and stir to break up the paste.
- Turn the temperature down to Warm, put the lid on, and let the soap paste dissolve in the water, about 8 hours or overnight. Stir every once and a while to help the paste dissolve.
- After 8 hours, if you have an oil slick or scum on the surface, add another cup or so of distilled or tap water, stir, and let cook for a little while longer to dissolve it, adding another cup if it still needs more.
Add Essential Oil If Desired
- Add 2 Tablespoons (1 fluid oz.) of pure high-quality essential oil. It will cloud your castile soap a little, don’t worry about that.
Bottle It Up
- When everything is completely dissolved, pour into clean containers.
Notes
Use your Castile Soap to wash dishes, diluted 1:10, or as hand or body wash, shampoo, dog wash, vegetable wash, or more.
https://trimazing.com/make-your-own-liquid-castile-bastille-soap/