Castile Soap

THE GENTLEST GOAT MILK SOAP

To the best of our understanding, castile (pronounced "cass - teel') soap originated in the Castile region of Spain and was made exclusively with olive oil. It is a wonderfully mild bar of soap that gently cleanses skin.

Unfortunately, today many people and companies call their soap castile soap when it is made with oils other than olive oil. This is unfortunate because while these soaps may (or may not) be good, they are not castile and do not have the properties of a true castile soap. If oils other than olive are used, it should be called simply an olive oil or vegetable oil soap. Some soapmakers refer to these soaps as "bastile" soaps (bastardized castile).

A true castile soap will have a lotion-like lather, and not the bubbly lather that most people are used to. Soaps that are called castile but have a big bubbly lather, have something else added to them to create those bubbles.

At Goat Milk Stuff, we make an organic castile goat milk soap that is made with just organic extra virgin olive oil as the oil portion and goat milk as the liquid. This is the mildest soap that we make and the one that we used on our newborn babies. We use the organic castile goat milk soap until our babies are about two months old, and then we switch them over to the purity goat milk soap.

Many women prefer to use the organic castile goat milk soap on their face because of how gently it cleanses. Others with extremely sensitive skin also use the organic castile. In fact, so far we’ve found that the only people unable to use this soap are those with skin allergies to goat milk, which is pretty rare. We’ve also had several cancer sufferers undergoing radiation and chemotherapy report that the organic castile goat milk soap has greatly helped their skin during their treatments.

Our organic castile goat milk soap will not last as long as our other unscented goat milk soaps because we only use the olive oil, but it is not a mushy bar of soap like some other castile soaps that we’ve seen. As with all soaps, you can make the organic castile goat milk soap last longer by using a soap dish or soap saver and letting it dry out between uses.