Last year, I scoured pharmacies and supermarkets in KL searching for pure, original liquid castile soap made of 100% olive oil. Unable to find one, I turned to the Internet and found plenty of online stores offering castile soap but most do not ship to Malaysia or the shipping would cost the earth or the soap was not made entirely of olive oil. Then, I stumbled upon A Little Ol’ Factory, a small online store specializing in artisan aromatic products and eco-friendly beauty ingredients. They also sell handmade certified organic 100% olive liquid castile soap. It was on sale and I bought four 16oz bottles of them all unscented.
This castile soap is as pure as a liquid soap can get. It is handcrafted from distilled water, KOH, saponified Olive Oil and nothing else added. The soap smells faintly of extra virgin olive oil.
Castile soap is so mild that even newborn babies and those with ultra-sensitive skin can use it. This is just perfect for my two daughters who both have eczema. Since using the soap and being totally ‘detergent-free’ my daughters’ eczema, especially Nuha the eldest one, has been improving steadily. They still have occasional outbreaks, but it wasn’t as stubborn as it was before.
A true Castile Soap should be ‘100% olive oil’ and NOT ‘mostly olive oil.’ Liquid castile soap have varieties of use. This soap will not produce a lot of sudsy lather but will effectively and gently clean hair, skin, laundry, dishes – almost anything you can think of. Mix it with some water in a spray-bottle and you’ll get yourself a general cleaning liquid.
I have some olive oil soap bars offered in my store….a 400g bar of original savon d’marseilles from France and a 230g bars of authentic aleppo soap (hammam soap) from Syria. But I do hope some of our local artisan soapmakers in Malaysia will soon produce pure castile soap in both bars and liquid form. This is because the original castile soap is a much healthier alternative to most commercial soaps for people with ultra-sensitive skin due to the soothing olive oil content in it . And it is also a much healthier choice for the environment as it is processed minus any synthetic additives or chemicals (except for the lye, of course).
