Instructions for making a natural Castile soap recipe with the simplest of ingredients. Olive oil soap is the most gentle and classic of all soap recipes and this recipe will show you how to make it from scratch using the cold process soap making method.
So many soap recipes call for four or more oils, lots of additives, and enough essential oil to bankrupt you. Fortunately, making pure and natural handmade soap can be as simple as just three readily available ingredients. Olive oil soap, or Castile soap, is one of the most traditional types you can make. However, if you’ve made cold-process soap before, prepare yourself for things to take a little longer with this recipe. It’s down to the nature of pure olive oil soap making and just part of the fun! Don’t worry though, I’m here to guide you through making some of the most skin-loving soap you’ll ever use.
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Technically you can use any oil to make soap but each one has a different soap making property. Coconut creates hard bars with fluffy lather, Sunflower oil creates softer, conditioning bars, and castor oil helps to stabilize lather. There are few single oils that make a really good batch of soap though and that’s why so many recipes call for a mixture of lots of different ones. Too much coconut oil and your bars might be drying, too much castor oil and they might be sticky.
Three of the exceptions to this are pure coconut oil soap, tallow soap, and pure olive oil soap. In the case of olive oil soap, you can use extra virgin olive oil or Pomace olive oil to make it. The former will be more expensive but will be higher quality and more natural product. You can read more about what pomace olive oil is and how it’s extracted here.
On its own, olive oil can make a good hard bar that’s sensitive, nourishing, and doesn’t over-dry your skin. It has quite a unique lather though that I’ll call creamy but you’ll hear others call slimy. It lacks the big fluffy bubbles that coconut oil or castor oil can give but in all honesty, I love it. No other soap feels quite as gentle as a bar made out of extra virgin olive oil. It’s also a great soap for sensitive skin and for babies.
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It’s not entirely clear when soap was invented but some of the earliest we know of were made of olive oil and laurel oil. Called Aleppo soap, these bars were introduced (or re-introduced) to Europe after the Crusades. Laurel oil wasn’t readily accessible so soap makers in the Castile region of Spain started making soap without it. Hence, the invention of pure olive oil soap.
I mentioned before that making olive oil soap could be a bit alarming for soap makers. That’s because it takes longer for it to come to ‘trace’, longer for it to harden in the mold, and longer for it to cure. If you prepare yourself for that, then making it is easy.
There are a couple of steps that I’ve woven into this recipe that should help with this time issue. We’ll be using less water than in typical soap making recipes and the optional ingredient sodium lactate helps to harden bars. Ordinary table salt can help with this too but Sodium lactate is far more dependable. Just be careful that you don’t use too much sodium lactate or it can cause your soap to go crumbly.
Using less water than what’s typical, is called using a water discount. In soap, it does a few things, including helping stop soda ash from forming and speeding up the time it takes your soap to ‘trace’. It also speeds up the time it takes before you can unmold soap and also slightly reduces your cure time. In this castile soap recipe, using a water discount will be helpful on all counts.
Another thing that will help speed up trace and to create slightly harder bars is to use olive oil pomace. It’s second-grade olive oil, cheaper than extra virgin olive oil, and often found in bulk food stores. Pure extra virgin olive oil can be better quality though and if you choose a brand that’s organic, you’re helping to support sustainable agriculture! Regardless, ensure that the olive oil is well in-date when purchasing from food suppliers, and if it comes in metal tins, you can use them to create these gorgeous succulent planters.
If you’re new to making natural handmade soap, you should read my four-part series on natural soap making. It gives a good introduction to what to expect from ingredients, equipment, cold-process soap recipes, and the soap making process.
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Makes a 1 lb or 454-gram batch which is exactly six bars if you use this soap mold. Please make sure that you are aware of all the safety measures you need to take when handling lye and making soap. This soap has a 5% superfat.
For more experienced soap makers: you can make this recipe at just above room temperature if you choose. Soaping at room temperature gives you the color of bars that you’ll see in this recipe’s photos but it will slow down the trace time. If you’re a beginner, I’d recommend that you stick with the slightly higher temperature given below.
If you’ve ever traveled to the open markets in the south of France, Italy, or Spain you’ll have seen lots of Castile soap. Most of it is actually Bastile, olive oil mixed with other oils to improve lather, but almost all of it is colored and scented. You can make your castile soap as colorful and as lovely scented as you’d like.
You can literally make this recipe with just three ingredients if you choose — water, lye, and olive oil. The optional lavender essential oil will give it a beautiful floral scent and the sodium lactate or salt helps to harden the bars. If you’d like to be more artistic with these bars I’ve collected dozens of different ideas for you in my piece How to Naturally Color Handmade Soap.
Keep in mind that the natural color of this soap is initially a light yellow and that can impact the final color of your bars. Depending on the oil you use, you may find that your soap cures to a bright white color. You can also use different essential oils to scent it and my guide for how much you can use is over here.
If you’re looking for even more soapmaking recipes and ideas, have a browse through my recipes. This simple Castile soap recipe is just the tip of the iceberg! Here are a few that I think might interest you:
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