A convert to castile soap....

[poltr1]

Some time ago, I bought a bar of Kirk's Coco Castile Soap. Last week, I opened it and tried it out in the shower.

I like it. A lot.

It suds up well, even in this hard-water town. It has a nice light fragrance, not overly perfumey like some other soaps on the market. And my skin feels very clean and tingle-y after using it. I wondered if the "clean" feeling was a result of my skin being dried out by the soap. (I don't think it is. Can someone confirm?)

AFAIK, "Castile" refers to the Castile region of Spain, where soap was made from olive oil. Castile now refers to any vegetable oil based soap (e.g. coconut oil). Another castile soap I like is Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps. And the label is an interesting read.

One advantage about castile soap is that it's completely biodegradable. I wish I knew about castile soap when I was in Boy Scouts. I would have used this instead of Ivory on my camping trips. (I'm still wondering: If the soap is 99.44% pure, what's the other 0.56%? And how biodegradable is it?)

Comments

[coop-girl.livejournal.com]

Ah, soap! My forte'! (You do know I make soap, right? Prepare for more soap talk than you wanted...)

I see they use 100% coconut oil - that "clean" feeling...is it kind of tight feeling? Maybe a little itchy later on?

If so, it's probably not actually dryness, it's probably the coconut oil irritating your skin. Coconut oil has a very short fatty acid chain (which is what makes it such a great latherer, btw) and it irritates skin on a lot of people.

Really, using just one oil in soap is (IMO) kinda cheap. A blend is far superior, IMO. Even just pure olive oil makes for kind of an icky soap - the lather usually feels like snot, lol. Some people say it's "creamy"...these people have obviously not experienced one of MY soaps!!

Yes, I'm tooting my own horn a bit, but honestly, I make the best soap I know how to make. I use 5-7 different oils, including either shea butter or cocoa butter - my lather beats anybody! It's thick, rich, TRULY creamy... I do use coconut in most of my recipes just because it is such a high powered latherer, but I blend it out with palm kernel oil, which is expensive, but also a fantastic latherer and not nearly as irritating to the skin. Toss in some castor to help strengthen the bubbles....

Well, can't give away all my secrets now, can I? *wink* Suffice to say, my bars are usually <13% coconut and that seems to keep even my most sensitive-skinned guinea pi...friends...happy.

Ivory soap...their ingredients: Sodium tallowate, sodium cocoate or sodium palm kernelate, water, sodium chloride, sodium silicate, magnesium sulfate, and fragrance (yes, I have bookmarks with this sort of info handy, lol)

Translation:
~Sodium tallowate, sodium cocoate or sodium palm kernelate = tallow (beef fat), coconut or palm kernal oil that has been saponified (made into soap by blending with lye & water)
~sodium chrolide = regular ol' salt
~magnesium sulfate = Epsom salts
~fragrance = quite obvious (and not natural)

I had to look up sodium silicate: "Sodium silicate is also known as soluble glass or sodium silicate glass. Harmful if ingested; it’s undiluted form can cause burns through skin or eye contact."

Well, I'm sure there's a miniscule amount of that in the soap, hehe. Kinda scary though.

I'm not sure why they put salt in their soap...I know salt acts as a lather-killer, but also would act sort of like a water softener in the shower and may promote lather. So maybe it's lather control? Maybe it makes the soap easier to whip? (which is how they get it to float) Not sure on that one. So that .56% is probably the fragrance, the sodium silicate, and maybe an allowance for the lye. (Lye itself is natural, but the lye soapmakers use was almost definitely made in a lab, so it's quasi natural, I guess, lol)

There's something *missing* from those ingredients too, and that's glycerine. Glycerine is a natural by-product from the saponification process, and since they listed the fats &/or oils in their post-saponified state, there should be glycerine in that ingredients list.

But there's not, because glycerine is very profitable to sell on the side. Who buys it? Lotion-making companies, for one. Glycerine is a natural humectant: it draws moisture to your skin. So the commercial soapmakers skim it off and sell it off, or use it in one of their other products. Makes financial sense, but also makes a more drying soap bar. Which makes you buy lotion, which is made in part with glycerine. Heh.

Had enough yet? I can keep talking like this for at least six more paragraphs, hehehe.

[poltr1]

I love it when ya talk soap with me, Coop! :-) Shows me you know your stuff. (And chemistry lab was one of my favorite classes in high school and college.)

The skin's a little tight, but not itchy.

Another coconut-oil based soap is Amway's LOC (Liquid Organic Cleaner). Their first product. (And frankly, they should have stuck to that and SA8 laundry detergent. But no! They had to get greedy and offer a full product line.)

I gotta get some soap from you sometime. I'm still looking for something that has comfrey in it that I can use on my face after shaving.

[coop-girl.livejournal.com]

Well...you know...if you register on my site, you can use coupon code NEW to get 10% off your first order... ;)

Comfrey in soap, hm? I wonder how much of the healing properties survive the "lye monster"? Have you used a comfrey soap before and it worked?

I do have some soaps made with aloe vera juice that seem to be very kind to sore skin, I wonder how well one of those would do you?

I may have to try making comfrey soap of my own...

[trektone.livejournal.com]

Another Dr Bronner's fan here. My favorites are peppermint (in my shower right now) and lavender. While I may stray every now and then, especially when I get soaps from Kauai (don't recall the brand at the moment) or the signature body bar (I think the main scent is lavender) from Nancy Boy, I return to Dr Bronner's.