How to Make a Multipurpose Liquid Castile Soap: Dr. Bronner’s Copycat Recipe
Dr. Bronner’s soap is a versatile, all purpose cleaner that is a great addition to any household. But let’s face it, it’s can be quite expensive. Learn how to make a multipurpose liquid Castile soap at home. It’s easy, frugal, and very rewarding.
If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you know by now that I love making soap.
Making bars of soap is a lot of fun, and you can experiment with all sorts of ingredients, colors, and other additives to customize your soap exactly as you like. If you’ve never made a bar soap before, take a look at my easy, beginner soap recipe, which shows you exactly how to start making bar soaps and also gives you ideas for customizing the soap to suit your needs. That beginner soap recipe is a modified Castile soap recipe, just like this one.
What is Castile soap?
I call this recipe a modified liquid castile soap recipe because it uses a variety of vegetable oils. Pure Castile soap normally refers to a soap made with only olive oil.
Over the years, the definition of “Castile soap” has been extended to include other soaps made with not only olive oil, but that also add in other vegetable oils. Other vegetable oils are added to change the properties of the soap, normally to give it more lather and make it more cleansing.
Soaps made with only olive oil are on the conditioning side, meaning that they are mild, and not stripping, when used on skin. On the other hand, they don’t form as much lather and aren’t considered highly cleansing soaps.
Coconut oil in soap makes a nice lather and is very cleansing, but it can be drying on the skin when used alone.
Combining a variety of oils allows you to add the beneficial properties of each oil in the soap, making a soap that can be ideal for a number of uses.
Why make your own liquid soap?
While it is fun to make bar soaps, I find it more rewarding to make liquid soaps at home.
Let’s face it, Dr. Bronner’s Liquid Castile soap is a very handy soap to have on hand, but it can be pretty pricey. By making your own liquid Castile soap at home, you can save yourself a lot of money. (And it’s actually pretty easy to do too!)
What’s in Dr. Bronner’s Liquid Castile Soap?
Despite the fact that they call it a “pure Castile soap,” it isn’t a soap made only with olive oil. In fact, coconut oil is the main ingredient of the Dr. Bronner’s soap that I tried to copycat (and of all the Dr. Bronner’s soaps that I can find here.)
I chose to try to make a soap similar to the Dr. Bronner’s 18-in-one Hemp Baby Unscented Pure Castile Soap. One of the reasons I chose that particular soap is that it is unscented, and it allows for me to see if my homemade liquid Castile soap has a similar natural scent. (I’ve noticed that my homemade liquid coconut oil soap and my homemade pure liquid Castile soap don’t have the same scent. Both have a mild natural soap scent, but my coconut oil soap smells a lot more like the Dr. Bronner’s soap than my soap made with olive oil.
Interestingly enough, I’m seeing that the version sold on Amazon in the US appears to be different from the bottle I bought at a local shop here in Spain.
Here in Spain palm kernel oil wasn’t listed at all, but in the US it is the oil that is used in the highest concentration after the coconut oil.
In the US, the soap has this ingredient list: Water, Organic Coconut Oil, Potassium Hydroxide, Organic Palm Kernel Oil, Organic Olive Oil, Organic Hemp Oil, Organic Jojoba Oil, Citric Acid, Tocopherol
You’ll notice that the main oil used is coconut oil, and that all of the other oils are used in a lesser quantity than even the lye itself. (In the case of liquid soaps, potassium hydroxide is the lye used.)
When I made my copycat liquid Castile soap, I didn’t use palm kernel oil because I was trying to copy the bottle of soap that I had at home. I had no idea that they made different formulations of their soap here in Europe.
I tried to make my recipe as similar to theirs as possible, so I used coconut oil as the base oil for my liquid Castile soap recipe, and used the other oils in descending order, using a smaller amount of those oils than the potassium hydroxide just like theirs.
The last two ingredients in Dr. Bronner’s soap are citric acid and tocopherol. Citric acid is likely used to neutralize the soap to keep it on the mild side. (You can read more about that in the section below about superfatting.)
Tocopherol is a form of vitamin E. It is often added to soaps to help extend the life of the soaps as it can help keep any excess oils from going rancid. In the case of liquid soaps that aren’t normally superfatted, it probably doesn’t help as much in this way, but it still may somehow help extend the shelf life somewhat. (Keep in mind that while the antioxidant properties of vitamin E can help extend an oil’s shelf life, Vitamin E is NOT a preservative, and won’t prevent bacterial or mold growth.) Still, vitamin E is a nice addition to any beauty product that will be used on face and body as it helps add moisture and can help soothe skin. You can most definitely add a few drops of vitamin E to your homemade liquid soap when you dilute it to help gain some of its positive benefits when using your liquid soap.
Differences between oils in liquid soap
When I first started making liquid Castile soap, I made the pure Castile soap with only olive oil as often as I made a liquid soap using coconut oil. I figured that for face and body use, the pure liquid Castile soap would be a lot better to use because soaps made with olive oil are milder and more conditioning than soaps made with coconut oil.
I wanted versatility, though, so I was making batches of both types of liquid soap to later combine them dependent on each particular use. The nice thing about liquid soaps is that you can combine the soaps after having made them. I used a mixture of different liquid soaps, using mostly olive oil soap for general bathing and mostly coconut oil for cleaning around the house.
Since then, though, I’ve found that I use my homemade liquid soap made with coconut oil much more than I use the liquid Castile soap made with only olive oil. I even occasionally use it 100% in the shower, and don’t find it to be drying on the skin. I think part of that may have to do with me using the glycerin method of liquid soap making. I use glycerin as part of the water component of the soap. I do it to help make an easier to use soap, but I think the extra glycerin (all soaps have glycerin in them that is made during the soap making process) likely helps prevent drying and makes a more conditioning soap.
Despite its popularity here on the blog (more than twice as many people check out the olive oil liquid Castile soap recipe over the coconut oil liquid soap), I have to admit that I rarely make that recipe anymore. I find myself often making double batches of the liquid coconut oil soap, though. I think people are so used to seeing “liquid Castile soap” for sale, and assume that the olive oil soap, being called “Castile soap,” will be closest to what they would normally buy.
That’s part of the reason that I decided to come up with another recipe that would be a nice, versatile, all-purpose cleanser like Dr. Bronner’s liquid Castile soap. This new recipe would combine coconut oil and olive oil, along with a couple of other oils, to make one batch of all-purpose liquid Castile soap. Some people had no desire to make two different batches of liquid soap, and I totally understand! Don’t get me wrong; either of the other recipes is pretty multi-purpose as well, but this one allows you to make just one batch and use it for pretty much anywhere you’d want to use liquid soap.
This soap compare vs. Dr. Bronner’s Unscented Baby Mild Liquid Castile soap
Scent comparison
While this soap had a similar scent, Dr. Bronner’s has a natural fragrance somewhere between this soap and that of my coconut oil liquid soap. I think my soap smells a bit more like hemp oil than Dr. Bronner’s version, which makes me think that I used higher concentrations of hemp and jojoba oils than Dr. Bronner’s does. (This, of course, is all guesswork on my part!)
Seeing as how hemp oil and jojoba oils are the more expensive oils in those recipe, that would make a lot of sense. To save even more money, you could definitely reduce those oils in this recipe, but you’d have to run the new formula through a lye calculator first to make sure that you use the right amount of potassium hydroxide. When formulating liquid soap recipes, I usually use the Summer Bee Meadow lye calculator, as I’ve often read that it’s the best calculator for liquid soap making. Not only does it take into account the water component in KOH vs. NaOH, but it also allows for calculating in glycerin and alcohol should you choose to use them.
Color comparison
My diluted soap is slightly lighter in color than my bottle of Dr. Bronner’s. Dr. Bronner’s soap is closer in color to my liquid soap paste. That likely means that their soap is a bit more concentrated than the soap I diluted to use as a hand soap. That makes sense when you consider that Dr. Bronner’s soap is marketed as being very concentrated, and most people dilute it further before using it. If I were to dilute my liquid soap paste with less water, I’d likely be able to make a liquid soap of the same color as theirs.
I would like to say that I’ve also had the bottle of Dr. Bronner’s soap for longer than my homemade liquid Castile soap. I’ve found that my liquid soap pastes tend to get slightly darker with time, so that could be another factor that affects the difference in color.
Use comparison
When using them, both soaps lather up nicely, and neither is drying on the skin. I don’t really notice any differences while using them.
Why use Glycerin (When Dr. Bronner’s doesn’t list it)?
Adding glycerin does add to the cost of making your own liquid Castile soap, but it does have several added benefits.
When I first started developing liquid soap recipes, I remember reading about people who replaced all of the water in the recipe with glycerin. The idea was that it makes the process more fool proof and speeds up the process of making a clear liquid soap.
I wanted to make the process of making liquid soap at home the easiest I could, so I chose to substitute part of the water component for glycerin. I’ve found that not only does it help move the process along quickly, converting the soap quickly into a liquid soap paste, but it also seems to make a very nice, mild liquid soap, even when only using coconut oil. When you take into consideration that liquid soaps aren’t normally superfatted, that’s saying a lot.
When making a homemade glycerin bar soap, I learned how glycerin can be a solvent of sorts that helps make a more transparent soap. My guess is that the addition of glycerin to my liquid soap helps to make it a bit more transparent even when I don’t use excess lye in the recipe.
I also think that the addition of glycerin helps make a liquid soap paste that easily dissolves in water. I’ve read horror stories from people who have a difficult time trying to dilute their soap paste in water. On the other hand, I’ve always easily dissolved mine just by adding some water to it and leaving it alone for a few hours.
What is superfatting?
Superfatting is the process of adding more oils to a soap than what are needed to react with all of the lye used. The idea is that not only will all of the lye be safely converted into soap, but that leftover oils also remain in the soap to help leave the skin conditioned and soft.
While most bar soaps are superfatted, especially those meant for face and body, leftover oils in a liquid soap can cause cloudiness. Because most people are aiming to make a transparent liquid soap like the ones sold in stores, liquid soaps aren’t normally superfatted. In fact, they are normally made with a lye excess and later “neutralized” to bring down the pH from the unreacted lye. You can read more about how to check the pH of soap and how to neutralize liquid soaps here. (The term neutralizing is a bit misleading as it will only bring the pH down slightly to a non-irritating range. You won’t be bringing the soap to a neutral pH. It will still be alkaline.)
You’ll notice that Dr. Bronner’s liquid soap lists citric acid as one of the ingredients. My best guess is that they are using the citric acid to help neutralize their soap so that the pH isn’t too high and doesn’t irritate your skin, all while allowing for a nice, clear, transparent soap.
To simplify things, I’ve calculated all of my liquid soap recipes to be 0% superfatted. Basically that means that if the recipe is followed precisely, you shouldn’t have any unreacted oil or any unreacted lye left.That said, it’s very possible that even if you follow the recipe precisely with a well calibrated scale, that you may have the tiniest bit of one or the other leftover, but it shouldn’t be enough to throw things far enough in either direction to make a big difference. If the soap is slightly cloudy, you may have some unreacted oils, but that will also make for a more conditioning soap. I personally don’t have a problem with cloudy liquid soap, but if it bothers you, you can try making with a lye excess and neutralize the soap later. Or you could go the easy route and use an opaque soap dispenser. (There are some beautiful stainless steel and ceramic ones available.) 😉
If you do end up with some unreacted lye, as long as it isn’t enough to bring the pH high enough so that it irritates the skin, it shouldn’t be a problem. If you find the soap irritating to your skin, though, you can check the pH and try neutralizing the soap. Up until now, I’ve never had an issue with any of my homemade liquid soaps using the recipes I’ve shared with you.
Video
Dr. Bronner’s Unscented Baby-Mild Copycat (Updated Recipe)
When I originally posted this recipe, I used larger quantities of the hemp and jojoba oils. Not only does this make the recipe more expensive to make, but I also found that it made for a cloudier soap.
I had a reader comment to me that she had made all of my liquid soap recipes, and that while the others were crystal clear, this one stayed cloudy for her. Mine was cloudy at first, but then an opaque layer settled out and fell to the bottom of the jar. Neither of us found it to affect the quality of the soap, but I didn’t really find it to improve the soap either. I decided to give you an updated version of the soap, with reduced quantities of the more expensive oils. I’ve found this updated version to much clearer, and I think it behaves similarly to the soap I bought in the store.
For those who want a soap without the hemp and jojoba oils, try the last recipe on this page. I’m guessing it’s perfectly clear and cheaper to make. I’m not convinced that the hemp and jojoba oils are providing any benefit in this soap anyway. (They are likely added for label appeal.)
Dr. Bronner’s Unscented Baby-Mild Copycat (Updated)
Materials
- 28 oz. coconut oil
- 8 oz olive oil
- 1 oz hemp oil
- .5 oz jojoba oil
- 9.4 oz KOH
- 20.2 oz distilled water
- 8 oz glycerin
Instructions
- Weigh out all of the oils and add them to a slow cooker on low heat.
- Weigh out and mix together the distilled water and glycerin.
- Dissolve the Potassium hydroxide (KOH) in the distilled water and glycerin mixture in a well ventilated area. Add the KOH to the water and not the other way around. Use gloves and safety goggles when working with potassium hydroxide. the mixture will heat up and get hot. Avoid inhaling the fumes.
- Add the potassium hydroxide solution to the oils in the slow cooker and begin to slowly mix them together.
- Use an immersion blender to blend the oils and potassium hydroxide solution together. At first it will get opaque and thicken slightly, then it will look curdled. Keep blending!
- Continue blending until it gets more opaque and begins to get too thick to blend with the immersion blender. I stopped blending as soon as I felt too much resistance so as not to burn out the blender, and my soap paste turned more solid almost immediately after I stopped.
- Continue to heat the paste, stirring as best you can with a spatula or spoon every half an hour or so. You want to continue to cook the soap paste until it becomes translucent. A good way to check what your final soap should look like is to dissolve a small amount in some distilled water and see if it dissolves clear. If not, continue to process a little longer. You’ll probably end up cooking the paste for a few hours.
- Once processed, you can store the soap paste in glass jars in a cool, dark place until you are ready to dilute it to make your liquid Castile soap.
- Depending upon how concentrated you want your soap, dissolve the soap paste in distilled water. I usually use somewhere between 2-4 parts water for every 1 part of soap paste. I dissolve small amounts at a time and leave the rest as a soap paste until I need to use it. The soap paste will keep for longer than diluted liquid soap.
- You can now add in any essential oils that you want to use to add a fragrance to your soap, or you can keep in unscented. You can also add in a few drops of tocopherol (vitamin E) at this time.
- Enjoy using your homemade liquid Castile soap.
Notes
- This recipe makes 4-4.5 lbs. of soap paste which can be diluted to 10-20 lbs. of liquid soap, or 1-2 gallons, depending on your dilution rate.
- Keep in mind that liquid soap is not as thick as commercial gels and surfactants. You’ll find that this soap, like Dr. Bronner’s, doesn’t need to look thick to be a concentrated, effective cleanser.
- Find more information about diluting your liquid soap paste here.
- Read more about checking the pH and neutralizing liquid soap here.
Dr. Bronner’s Copycat soap recipe (Original version)
This was my original recipe for this post
Version 1: Dr. Bronner’s Copycat
Ingredients
- 25 oz. coconut oil
- 8 oz olive oil
- 5 oz hemp oil
- 3 oz jojoba oil
- 9.68 oz KOH
- 21.05 oz distilled water
- 8 oz glycerin
Instructions
- Weigh out all of the oils and add them to a slow cooker on low heat.
- Weigh out and mix together the distilled water and glycerin.
- Dissolve the Potassium hydroxide (KOH) in the distilled water and glycerin mixture in a well ventilated area. Add the KOH to the water and not the other way around. Use gloves and safety goggles when working with potassium hydroxide. the mixture will heat up and get hot. Avoid inhaling the fumes.
- Add the potassium hydroxide solution to the oils in the slow cooker and begin to slowly mix them together.
- Use an immersion blender to blend the oils and potassium hydroxide solution together. At first it will get opaque and thicken slightly, then it will look curdled. Keep blending!
- Continue blending until it gets more opaque and begins to get too thick to blend with the immersion blender. I stopped blending as soon as I felt too much resistance so as not to burn out the blender, and my soap paste turned more solid almost immediately after I stopped.
- Continue to heat the paste, stirring as best you can with a spatula or spoon every half an hour or so. You want to continue to cook the soap paste until it becomes translucent. A good way to check what your final soap should look like is to dissolve a small amount in some distilled water and see if it dissolves clear. If not, continue to process a little longer. You’ll probably end up cooking the paste for a few hours.
- Once processed, you can store the soap paste in glass jars in a cool, dark place until you are ready to dilute it to make your liquid Castile soap.
- Depending upon how concentrated you want your soap, dissolve the soap paste in distilled water. I usually use somewhere between 2-4 parts water for every 1 part of soap paste. I dissolve small amounts at a time and leave the rest as a soap paste until I need to use it. The soap paste will keep for longer than diluted liquid soap.
- You can now add in any essential oils that you want to use to add a fragrance to your soap, or you can keep in unscented. You can also add in a few drops of tocopherol (vitamin E) at this time.
- Enjoy using your homemade liquid Castile soap.
Notes
- This recipe makes 4-4.5 lbs. of soap paste which can be diluted to 10-20 lbs. of liquid soap, or 1-2 gallons, depending on your dilution rate.
- Keep in mind that liquid soap is not as thick as commercial gels and surfactants. You’ll find that this soap, like Dr. Bronner’s, doesn’t need to look thick to be a concentrated, effective cleanser.
- Find more information about diluting your liquid soap paste here.
- Read more about checking the pH and neutralizing liquid soap here.
Don’t want to use hemp and jojoba oils at all?…
Multipurpose Liquid Castile Soap (Coconut + Olive Oil)
Some people have been asking me for a soap without hemp and jojoba, so I decided to calculate it out for you. I haven’t personally tried this recipe myself yet, but I imagine it would make a wonderful soap.
Multipurpose Liquid Castile Soap
Ingredients
- 28 oz. coconut oil
- 8 oz olive oil
- 9.15 oz KOH
- 19.44 oz distilled water
- 8 oz glycerin
Instructions
- Weigh out all of the oils and add them to a slow cooker on low heat.
- Weigh out and mix together the distilled water and glycerin.
- Dissolve the Potassium hydroxide (KOH) in the distilled water and glycerin mixture in a well ventilated area. Add the KOH to the water and not the other way around. Use gloves and safety goggles when working with potassium hydroxide. the mixture will heat up and get hot. Avoid inhaling the fumes.
- Add the potassium hydroxide solution to the oils in the slow cooker and begin to slowly mix them together.
- Use an immersion blender to blend the oils and potassium hydroxide solution together. At first it will get opaque and thicken slightly, then it will look curdled. Keep blending!
- Continue blending until it gets more opaque and begins to get too thick to blend with the immersion blender. I stopped blending as soon as I felt too much resistance so as not to burn out the blender, and my soap paste turned more solid almost immediately after I stopped.
- Continue to heat the paste, stirring as best you can with a spatula or spoon every half an hour or so. You want to continue to cook the soap paste until it becomes translucent. A good way to check what your final soap should look like is to dissolve a small amount in some distilled water and see if it dissolves clear. If not, continue to process a little longer. You’ll probably end up cooking the paste for a few hours.
- Once processed, you can store the soap paste in glass jars in a cool, dark place until you are ready to dilute it to make your liquid Castile soap.
- Depending upon how concentrated you want your soap, dissolve the soap paste in distilled water. I usually use somewhere between 2-4 parts water for every 1 part of soap paste. I dissolve small amounts at a time and leave the rest as a soap paste until I need to use it. The soap paste will keep for longer than diluted liquid soap.
- You can now add in any essential oils that you want to use to add a fragrance to your soap, or you can keep in unscented. You can also add in a few drops of tocopherol (vitamin E) at this time.
- Enjoy using your homemade liquid Castile soap.
Notes
- This recipe makes around 5.5 lbs. of soap paste which can be diluted to 12-25 lbs. of liquid soap, or around 2 gallons, depending on your dilution rate.
- Keep in mind that liquid soap is not as thick as commercial gels and surfactants. You’ll find that this soap, like Dr. Bronner’s, doesn’t need to look thick to be a concentrated, effective cleanser.
- Find more information about diluting your liquid soap paste here.
- Read more about checking the pH and neutralizing liquid soap here.
Hi there Tracy! I’ve just recently discovered your website & it was been very information:) Just wondering about the Castile soap recipe- rather than using citric acid or KOH, do you know much about “coco glucoside”? It’s a mild surfactant (made from plant extracts) used in organic baby shampoo/body washes. I was wondering whether you would know how I could make a castile soap combining your recipe with coco glucoside (WITHOUT KOH)? Thank you:)
Hi Jenny,
I have taken a natural surfactants course for professional cosmetics formulators and am in the process of taking a haircare course. We cover surfactants like coco glucoside in both course. I have it at home and very much like and use it. (I’m working on more posts using it.)
The thing is, though, Castile soap and those sorts of surfactants are completely different. I think they are both wonderful, but perhaps not together. I’m not sure what happens when you start combining them. They tend to be used in different pH ranges. (Soap is alkaline whereas most people use the surfactants in more acidic pH’s.)
You can’t make Castile soap, or any soap, without some sort of lye. Normally NaOH is used in bar soaps and KOH in liquid soaps.
Thank you very much for your quick reply. I really look forward to your post on coco glucoside soon. The reason why I am asking is because I am having a baby soon in 3.5 months time and hope to make a baby wash gel for my baby.
On another note, I came this website which gave the recipe for making baby wash with ‘coco glucoside’:
http://www.natural-organic-products-and-recipes.com/baby-soap-recipe.html
What are your thoughts and what do you think? Is this something that will work for my baby without any allergic reaction?
Thank you once again:)
To be honest, that recipe doesn’t look safe to me!
It appears that they tried to use glycerin as a base to avoid needing to use preservatives, but with the water in the surfactant itself, you need a preservative. You can use natural ones.
If bacteria and/or mold start growing in the product, you may not even know it. You can usually see mold, but not bacteria. I’ve seen pictures of rashes of people who have used a product that wasn’t properly preserved. It isn’t pretty, and I wouldn’t wish it on a baby!
The reason you don’t need a preservative with liquid soap is that of its high pH.
In any case, such a huge percentage of glycerin would make for a very sticky product. I’d replace it with distilled water or some gentle hydrosol or floral water and then use a safe preservative. I wouldn’t use glycerin as more than 5% of any recipe.
I’ll try to get you a recipe before your baby is born. 😉
Thank you so much- I look forward to your new recipe 🙂
Really appreciate the advice that you’ve given me.
Jenny (Australia)
You’re very welcome!
Hi Tracy, I’m very interested in soap topics, but as am not a soaper I can’t differentiate between the processes of liquid and solid tranaslucent soap. Can u please explain to me. In other word what will make it hard or liquid. Thanx in advance
Hi Naglaa,
The main difference is in the type of lye used. Liquid soaps use potassium hydroxide (KOH) while solid bars of soap use sodium hydroxide (NaOH).
Hey Tracy, im planning to attempt liquid soap this weekend. I understand glycerine helps speed up the process and can also provide more a moisturizing quality. If i choose to omit the glycerine do you have any suggestions of things i should consider? Are your recipes supperfatted? If no, should i supperfat when omitting the glycerine? Finally are cold process and liquid soap recipes interchangeable with just switching the type of lye?
Hi J P,
If you want a transparent soap, you definitely don’t want to superfat it. If you don’t care about that, then you can slightly superfat the liquid soap, but you’ll end up with something cloudy.
Most liquid soaps are actually made with a lye excess to avoid said cloudiness. They are then “neutralized” with either borax or citric acid or some other acid. (I put neutralize in parenthesis because soap will never actually be neutral and will always be on the alkaline side. If you try to lower the pH too much, it will fall apart.) You can read more about neutralizing a liquid soap here. (I actually want to update that post soon with my new thoughts, but for now it should help you understand the process better.)
To make things easier, I neither lye excess nor do I superfat. I calculate my liquid soaps to be exact. I’ve tried with different brands of KOH and so far I’ve always been pretty successful with getting a nice, pretty soap.
I probably wouldn’t bother using anything else if you omit the glycerin. I’d just switch it out for water.
As for switching out the recipes- to be honest, I’ve never tried seeing what would happen with the same amount of NaOH. I always run each individual recipe through the lye calculators, so I’m not sure.
May I know if there is a difference in using unrefined jojoba oil and refined jojoba oil? and whether to use a cosmetic grade jojoba oil?
thanks so much once again..
Hi Yohanna,
For soapmaking, there shouldn’t be any big difference between using the refined and unrefined jojoba oil. (To be honest, with jojoba oil I haven’t really seen that offered both ways as much as fats like shea butter where the unrefined has a strong scent.)
I think these things make more of a difference when making things like lotions where the oils stay intact. With soaps, though, the fats are converted so it doesn’t really affect things in the same way. You don’t really end up with the same properties of the oils in soap as you do before the saponification process, so it’s hard to really know how the fats will behave once you use them to make soap.
Thank you so much for replying both of my questions. And may i just add one last question? Are these soap safe for babies? Cause i want to use these handmade soap for my newborn..
Hi Yohanna,
Yes, you can use the soaps for babies, but I would like to say that in general, you should be very conservative in the amount of soap you use on the skin, especially with babies. (This isn’t really a comment about soap only, but really any sort of surfactant or cleanser).
My son has very sensitive skin with atopic dermatitis, and I successfully use this soap with him without any issues. His dermatologist also suggested different types of cleansers, but said that no matter what we used, we really shouldn’t use cleansers on the skin when not necessary. We really only need to water wash most areas of our skin most days. I like to reserve the cleansers for removing dirt and grim when necessary, and any areas that can get a bit smelly, if you know what I mean. 😉
This really goes for anybody, but is especially true for anybody with sensitive skin.
We all react differently to different products, though, so if you feel like it’s irritating your baby’s skin, perhaps it would be best to try with something else.
Hi Tracy,
May i know if i can add citric acid in here as well? Thank you so much for your wonderful recipes ❤️
Hi Yohanna,
Citric acid is sometimes added to liquid soaps to help”neutralize” them. That’s because to ensure that a liquid soap is transparent, you don’t want to have an excess amount of oils in the recipe. (Bar soaps are often “superfatted” with extra oils to make them more conditioning and it doesn’t affect them cosmetically.)
So, many liquid soap makers will make their soaps with an excess amount of lye and then they use either citric acid or borax to bring the pH back down a little.
You can add some citric acid, if you like, but too much will make the soap fall apart. Soap can never really be in the neutral ph range. It is always a bit alkaline, so you have to be careful when adding it.
To understand the whole issue better, you could read my post about neutralizing liquid soaps.
Hello Tracy,
Thank you for all this great information! This is a well written and detailed post for a beginner like myself. I’d like to know if I can still use these recipes if I’m using the cold process of soap making. Thanks much!
Hi Tash,
I pretty much always cold process all bar soaps, but liquid soaps are a bit different.
I will say that I have done some experimentation with cold processing liquid soaps (which nobody seems to do), and am about to post my findings so far. Maybe I can put it on my schedule for this week, and try to write about my experience!
(I can give you a bit of a hint, though, and say you CAN make liquid soap by cold process, but you’ll end up with an opaque soap. If you want a clear looking liquid soap, you’ll have to cook it for at least a little while.)
Yes, there is little information to be found on cold process liquid soap! I’d love if you posted!
Thanks so much for the tip! Big help haha
Thank you for the recipe! I tried it but Unfortunately I couldn’t get the paste to be translucent. My result ended with a milky mixture! Not sure if you can help. Thanks. Michael.
I’d suggest leaving it for a few days, diluting it, and then seeing how it dilutes. If the diluted soap is cloudy, allow to settle for another couple days to see.
Hi Tracy, I am Newton from Brazil. I have produced successfully soap bars of Pure Castile Oil according to your recipe and they are great. Now I am trying to produce the liquid soap but would like to use the pure NaOH I have from the bar recipe. Is it possible?
Hi Newton,
Unfortunately, if you use the NaOH, you’re really just making a hot-process bar soap. While you can dilute them, they aren’t really making a true liquid soap. (You’d end up with the same thing that you would by grating bar soap and dissolving in water.)
I know that KOH is harder to find and normally more expensive, but I think it’s totally worth it. Making your own liquid soap is probably one of the most rewarding hobbies you can have. It makes a lot of liquid soap, and in the end saves you a lot of money!
Crystal clear response. Thank you Tracy.
Hello! I was wondering if this liquid soap can be used for everything the Dr. Bronner’s one says (the 18-in-1 idea) and how long does a batch lasts. I’ve been trying to find a soap that I can use for cleaning, laundry, etc.
P.S. Great website!!!
Hi Rosario,
Thanks so much.
Yes, in the sense that everything that you’d use their liquid Castile soap for, you could use this one. That said, I don’t personally use liquid Castile soap for all of the uses they suggest. 😉
I haven’t switched to brushing my teeth with soap, nor do I like it for my hair. (It does work well for some people, though.)
I think of their list as more of a list of ideas of things you could try. Ha!
As for how long it lasts—
Do you mean how long it will keep before it goes bad? I only dilute part of it at a time and leave the rest as soap paste. I’ve had pastes that I made perhaps almost 2 years ago that seem to be holding up just fine. The batch is pretty large, so depending on how much you use liquid Castile soap, it could last you quite a while. (That, of course, depends on how much you dilute it, how much you use it, etc.)
i dont have hemp oil. can i just add more olive and coconut oils?
Hi Melissa,
I was just about to update this post anyway, as I had recently been trying out a new version of this recipe with smaller amounts of jojoba and hemp oils. I found that too much of those oils made for a cloudier soap. It didn’t affect the quality of the soap but did affect the aesthetics.
I decided to not only add in my new version but to calculate and add a final option for a multipurpose liquid Castile soap that uses only coconut and olive oils. It’s now the 3rd recipe listed in this post.
With soap recipes, it isn’t a good idea to switch up the oils without running it through a lye calculator first as different oils need more or less lye to make soap. (There is some leeway, but too much lye makes for a harsh soap, and too little lye makes for a softer soap (talking bars here) that may go rancid more quickly. With a liquid soap, it would probably make for a cloudy soap. Obviously, if you have way too little lye, you may not even end up with soap. 😉
Dear Tracy
I love your recipes.
I want to do a castile soap shampoo and use it with your conditioner. Do you have or know any good recipe? I found so hard to make shampoo.
Thank you for sharing
Warmly
maria
Hi Maria,
I was considering having somebody do a guest post on my blog for how to do a shampoo or a shampoo bar using soap from somebody who uses it on their hair successfully. I personally can’t use soap on my hair as it just doesn’t respond well to it. I think there are certain hair types that do adapt to the higher pH of soap, but mine isn’t one of them.
That said, I’ve been experimenting with some natural surfactants to make a surfactant based shampoo (more similar to what you would buy, but without the artificial fragrances and some of the other additives that one might want to avoid), and will hopefully be posting one of those relatively soon. I’ve been perfecting a “low shampoo” that’s been working well on my own hair, and then will work on a more “normal” shampoo.
I don’t really want to make and share a soap shampoo myself as it’s not something I actually personally use, and that would make me feel like a bit of a fraud. 😉
thank you so much for your reply.
and thank you so much for your website. I love it.
warmly
maria
You’re welcome, and thank you for your comment. 🙂
Thank you for sharing this recipe. Can I replace to almond oil or apricot oil instead of hemp oil?
Hi YC,
You’d have to run the recipe through a lye calculator first to see how much lye (in this case KOH) would be needed with the new oils.
I made a new batch of this soap a week or two ago with less of the expensive oils (hemp and jojoba), and I think I actually like it better. I’m about to post the new recipe.
Let me see if I can get working on getting it up as an alternative all-in-one soap recipe on this same post. If you can’t figure out how to work the lye calculator (I use the summer bee one for liquid soaps), maybe I can help you once you let me know which one you prefer trying (the one with less of the extra oils) and which of the oils you’d prefer to try to sub out for the hemp.
Thank you Tracy.
Could you calculate the amount of KOH with almond oil instead of hemp oil?
BTW, I’m looking forward to seeing your new recipe soon.
Hi YC,
Sorry for the delay. The lye calculator I usually use was down the day I saw your comment.
I have now updated the post with 2 new recipes- One that uses smaller quantities of hemp and jojoba oils, and one that doesn’t use them at all.
If you were to want to try adding in some almond oil, you could add an ounce of almond oil to the final recipe. (So, 28 oz. coco, 8 oz. Olive oil, 1 oz. Almond oil). You’d then use 9.35 oz of KOH and adjust the water to 20.06 oz. (The glycerin would stay the same at 8oz).
I haven’t tried a liquid soap with almond oil, though, so I have no idea how it would affect the final soap.