Bitch Post #12: You Call It Castile, I Call It Baloney!

Time for a new pic...I look nothing like this anymore, lol!

I haven’t done a bitch post in a long time, and I’m long overdue! Bitching is so therapeutic, and one of my biggest pet peeves is misinformation (or misleading information)-of any kind. When I see listings for Castile soap, the first thing I look at are the ingredients, and guess what? Eight times out of ten, I’ll see something like this:

Olive oil, coconut oil….

Wrong. WRONG. WRONG!

A true Castile soap has only one oil: Olive. If a soap has filler oils even in the most minute amounts, then it cannot be called a true Castile soap. Amy from The Olde Crone has a good word for those soaps: Bastile, or bastardized Castile soap. One thing about Castile soaps that I like but others may find a real turnoff, is the lather. The lather is dense and creamy-not very bubbly-although I’ve seen some Castile soaps that have cured for up to a year (I personally can barely wait 3-4 weeks, yet alone a year for a soap to cure) and the lather was sick-as in frothy and abundant. 

Stone Washed Denim

 I have made only 2 Castile soaps in my three years of making cold and hot processed soaps. The first one I made back in late 2008? I called it Stone Washed Denim, and it was scented in a clean cotton scent. I did notice that the bars were still kind of soft even after about a month, so I let them sit. And sit. And sit.  I would say these bars did not fully cure until about month 3. I sold the last bar probably about 6 months after I listed it, and it was rock hard. That experience deterred me from making another Castile soap-until now.

Castile My Beating Heart

Castile My Beating Heart

This new batch of Castile soap I call Castile My Beating Heart (after Sting’s Be Still My Beating Heart). It’s colorless and scented in a blend of chamomile, neroli, and sweet orange essential oils. I’m not a big fan of chamomile, so I wanted to get rid of what I had. It’s a little too strong for my liking, so I cut it with the sweet orange, but it didn’t do much good. It might as well be chamomile soap. Any way, I CPOP’ed this batch, and it’s made a noticeable difference in the cutting and curing time. I waited a day to actually un-mold and slice the soap, and my knife glided (Why did I almost type glode as in ride/rode?) right through it. There was no sticky residual soap left on my knife. After 3 weeks, the soap is about 90% firm, but I’m going to let this one cure for at least another month. I sprinkled the tops with calendula, cut lemongrass, and poppy seeds because it was just too naked. So….

I know there are varying opinions on this subject, and I welcome your thoughts.

Side Bar: Speaking of long overdue, this blog was long overdue for a makeover. I'm a colorful person (Absolutely no pun intended), and I needed my blog to reflect that, so KA-BLAMMO!!!  I told my new graphics designer to go buck wild-like Skittles on acid. I not only wanted you to taste the rainbow, but swallow it...You like?