After browsing the web for simple home-cleaning solutions, I came across an informative website with easy dish soap recipes. I wanted something simple and effective with ingredients readily available at my local health store so I decided to try the Liquid Castile Soap recipe. The ingredients for this recipe are liquid castile soap, water, and a few drops of essential oil.
I cut the recipe in half for my test run and combined only 1 cup liquid castile soap, 1/4 cup water, and 1 drop bergamot essential oil. I shook the bottle with these combined ingredients and my new dish soap bubbled right up. I tested it out on a greasy pan as well as other dirty dishes, and noticed great results all around. The soap was not as bubbly as my commercial, name-brand product, but it cleaned well and I enjoyed the light smell of the essential oil.
After putting my new product to use, I took a look at the ingredients in both of my products to decide if I would continue to pay slightly more to buy castile soap for my homemade recipe rather than purchase my name-brand dishwashing liquid. The ingredients for my castile soap were as follows: water, saponified organic coconut & organic olive oils (w/retained glycerin), organic hemp oil, organic jojoba oil, citric acid, and vitamin E.
In comparison, my name-brand dish soap listed only biodegradable surfactants (anionic and nonionic). I was disappointed at this lack of description and attempted to Google it with little success. I will continue to make my own dish soap and pass along the recipe, because I can truly trust it whereas I can only hope that my name-brand dish soap would be healthy option.
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Awesome! I am definitely going to try this. Also, let’s see if we can get an appointment at Out of the Blue one of these nights – I really want to put it on this site!
This works really well! Just as good as anything you will find in the stores!
Thank you so much!!! I found this site to be very helpful!!!
I tried using liquid Castile mixed with lemon juice, vinegar and a little peppermint oil. I found that there is a film on my glasses and left behind in my sink. Things feel clean, but the film on my glasses sure doesn’t look clean. Anyone else find this?
Hi Michele,
I’m surprised to hear you are seeing a film, especially using the vinegar. This should really help to keep the dishes spot free. However, I took a look at the Biokleen dish soap I bought at a health store for a great deal and noticed a few ingredients that it notes for it’s good cleaning power: grapefruit seed and orange peel extract. I’m wondering if maybe adding one of these might help. Good luck!
Thank you for getting back to me, and I will give the extracts a try.
I am going to try using tea tree as a substitute because there’s no bergamot in the house right now. Maybe add a few drops of lemon oil too. Also Michelle, anionic and nonionic surfactant blends are basically a euphemism for sodium laureth sulfate. Thanks again for this post, soooo helpful!!!
Sarah: Thanks for the clarification of the ingredient terms used in Biokleen. I was not aware of this and going forward, I will make my own. I already use Dr. Bronners w/ some added h2o for hand soap.
On a side note, I have been using Biokleen produce wash and am wondering if I should replace that as well?? Any suggestions?
Thanks!
Hi Allison, I’m sorry we never got back to you on your question- I’m not sure how it was missed. We had later posted this article on vegetable wash (I use it for fruit, too) so hopefully this will help you out! http://openeyehealth.wpengine.com/2010/04/homemade-vegetable-wash/
i don’t know how accurate the information but I read on one dish soap recipe to not add lemon or vinegar to Castile soap as they cancel out each other and you end up with a “bad” product. I had never read that before so don’t know how sure the information might be and nothing was given for backing up that statement so I can’t pass that along. But perhaps someone can educate us on that point?
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