How To Make Castile Soap
Making Castile Soap
Making your own soap is fun, easy, and inexpensive.
Imagine using your own handmade natural soap for you and your family. Plus, it only takes about 15 minutes to make a batch of soap.
As a bonus, there is great pleasure in sharing your wonderful handmade soap with friends. It makes a perfect gift for special occasions.
Ready to learn how fun and easy this really is?
Step 1: Gather Your Ingredients
To make your first bar of Castile Soap you will need:
- 16 oz olive oil
- 2.25 oz Lye
- 1.0 oz beeswax
- 1 Cup of Water
You will also need a few things to mix your soap in, a spatula, a whisk, safety glasses, and a mold to pour your soap in (you can use anything for this)
Step 2: Mix Water and Lye
Measure out 2.25 ounces (by weight) of lye. Be very careful with the lye and make sure to wear safety glasses. Lye is extremely caustic and can seriously damage your eyes or skin.
On our scale we always end up with 2.26 ounces. Don't worry, it works just fine--so perfectionists you can rest easy.
Mix the measured lye with 1 cup of distilled or purified water. Stir and set aside.
NOTE: While stirring, don't breathe in. The fumes from the lye can hurt your lungs. I just hold my breath but if you want you could wear a mask.
Step 3: Mix Olive Oil and Beeswax
Measure out 16 ounces (by weight) of olive oil and 1 ounce (by weight) of beeswax.
Dump the beeswax in with the olive oil.
Put this in the microwave to melt the beeswax. Our microwave takes just over two minutes. You want this just hot enough to melt the beeswax but not any hotter than that.
Now gently stir the olive oil and beeswax until all the beeswax is mixed into the olive oil. If you need to, put it in the microwave to melt any remaining beeswax.
Step 4: Mix Everything Together and Pour
Now gently pour the water and lye mix into the olive oil and beeswax mix. Do this slowly so as to not splash.
Stir this for approximately two minutes. I just count to 100 and call it good. What you are trying to achieve is called trace. When the mixture begins to thicken, it begins to "trace". This means the soap is ready to pour. If you stir too long, it will be lumpy and not form great soap. I find it better to pour too early rather than too late.
Now pour your soap into your molds.
Let your soap sit for about 48 hours and pop out of the molds. To make removal from molds even easier, you can stick it in the freezer for 30 minutes or so and then pop your soap out.
Castile soap should sit for at least a week before use and gets better the longer it sits. I wait at least a month before using mine.
Happy Soap Making!
Follow me @bigpanda for more fun crafty posts.
Super detailed steps here @bigpanda. Thanks, I may have a go at making some this next week.
Let me know how it goes!
thtas cool.... weve tried that too in school... with our own choice of scent.... you can even give it as gift and souvenirs....
We love giving it as gifts. Last year for Christmas we made it in Mustache molds--they were a big hit.
good thing you have cute mold... ill try to look for some mold also... a nice one like that... to make it more attractive...
So that is how it is done. I bookmarked your blog.
Thanks!
I've always wanted to try but since it uses lye, my husband always suggested not to. But I already bought tons of molds 😅😅😅😅 I read you can make without lye but using clear soap and so I aimed to make one using it, but we moved to a small town and the only place I can get supplies is online and shipping is hell. So I never get to try and since I have kids then, we used the mood for crayons and such 😂
Thank you for sharing!
I have never tried with clear soap but my sister does and says it is fairly easy. If you do, let me know how it goes.
That should have said we used the mold not mood 😅
The result of making something of by own is always something worthwhile
Absolutely @rehan12. It always feels really good to make your own things.
Love DIY, Upvoted and following you, please also have al look at my blog.
i assume you bought the molds?
i'm still looking for a alternative method for cheap silicon molds (i have used the DIY house and bathroom silicone to make molds but it's extreme smelly and chemical)
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