Anyone ever made olive oil soap before?

[BCR]

You can use rancid fats to make soap, but I prefer to use it oiling my shovels or other tools. I use it on a rag and oil the wooden handles and metal ends to defeat rust and keep the handles splinter free for next year. Or get fancy and get a bucket of sand and add the oil to it. Then shove the shovel in and out and it is well oiled.

I don't make 100% olive oil soap as it took forever to trace the one time I did. Try using a recipe that mixes oils for faster tracing.

[Cyngbaeld]

If you use rancid oil for soap the soap will smell rancid. I tried it and was not happy.

I do make castile soap and really love it. It is the greatest for bathing and washing my hair.

[kesoaps]

Please don't use rancid oil for soap. Gross. As Cyngbaeld said, your soap will smell rancid. If you do a 100% olive oil soap, just use the lye calculator and plug in how much oil you want to use to determine the lye amount.

If you use a stick blender to stir, it won't take so long to trace as handstirring.

[jillianjiggs]

Heh...Just what I was thinking. Don't use rancid oils. On the same note, don't use bacon drippings. Your soap will smell like bacon. That is, of course, unless you'd like your soap to smell like bacon...

[Maura]

Whichever recipe you use, use up all of the lye. There are recipes for small batches that you can mix in your blender, but then you have to handle the lye. Used to be able to buy 12 oz cans of lye, but now Red Devil only sells 18 oz, so I increased all other ingredients 50%. With a batch this size, do not use a blender stick, stir by hand.

Pure olive oil soap is silky, but doesn't have much lather. If you add coconut oil, you will increase the lather. If you add castor oil, you will have a nice rich lather. Add the castor after you've mixed the lye and other oils together.

[deb]

Originally Posted by lilyrose

If so, I'd love to know your recipe. Thanks.

I heard if your olive oil goes rancid you can make soap with it.

Don't use rancid oil to make soap...your soap will just end up smelling rancid!

I use the 100% Olive Oil Castille recipe on www.soapnuts.com. I use a stick blender to speed up the reaction. 100% olive oil castille will take a little longer to harden than other recipes and it doesn't make hug bubbles, but you will end up with a very hard bar that is gentle on your skin/hair and rinses off easily.

Just use regular grade Olive oil for soap...extra virgin is great for cooking, but doesn't necessarily do anything for soap and it costs more.

I heartily recommend that you stay away from Pomace olive oil. It is lowest grade of olive oil; after all the oil is extracted by pressing, the remaining oil is extracted from the olive pulp using solvents/chemicals. A lot of Italians don't consider Pomace olive oil to be food grade because traces of the solvents remain in pomace oil.

deb
in wi