Looking for an all-natural, eco-friendly way to clean yourself and your home? Dr. Bronner’s castile soap has 18 uses, all in 1! Dr. Bronner’s liquid castile soap is also extremely concentrated, therefore cuts down on waste. Just dilute with water! Use this soap in the shower or around your house.
Named after the olive oil-based soaps originating in Castile, Spain, Castile soap can come in liquid or bar form, but it is made only from vegetable oils. Soap is made by saponifying a fat or oil with an alkali. A fat or oil is a triglyceride, which means that three fatty acids of various carbon lengths are attached to a glycerin backbone. The alkali is either sodium hydroxide (lye) for bars or potassium hydroxide (potash) for liquids. Alkali is made by running electricity through salt water.
The saponification process is a simple one-step reaction with no waste generated: the glycerin is split off from the fatty acids, and the fatty acids combine with the sodium or potassium to form soap, while the hydroxide forms water. The result is soap, glycerin and water (no alkali remains in Dr. Bronner’s soaps).
Unlike most commercial soapmakers, who distill the glycerin out of their soaps to sell separately, Dr. Bronner’s retain it in their soaps for its superb moisturizing qualities. For a smoother lather, they use natural vitamin E and to protect freshness they use citric acid (both from non-GMO sources). They do not add any chelating agents, dyes, whiteners, or synthetic fragrances— only the purest certified organic essential oils.
Quality soapmaking means choosing the right proportions of the right oils. Coconut oil is very high lathering but can be drying. Olive oil gives a soft and luxuriant lather but in small amounts. By using both coconut and olive oils in the right ratio, Dr. Bronner’s soaps offer the best of both worlds: high lather that’s soft on the skin. Their soaps also contain hemp and jojoba oils, which mirror the natural oils in the skin’s sebum, leaving skin feeling smooth after the soaps are washed away.
