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If we go back to the beginning of soap making in Europe, soap was derived mostly from animal fat, which not only smelt terrible (it was the 11th century) but didn’t work well. As explorers travelled across continents, they discovered a beautiful castile style soap that was being produced in Egypt and Syria. Bringing it back to Europe and subsequently the Mediterranean, they discovered the main ingredient - laurel oil - was not available. Using the same techniques, they derived castile soap from olive oil and named it after the Castile region in Spain.
Castile soap is a multi-purpose and sensitive skin safe soap that uses the power of the oils it is derived from to create a moisturizing and foaming blend. The modern castile style soap is usually a liquid or a gel and can work for anything from your body wash to your all-purpose soap. It is a truly multi-functional cleaning product that you can feel good about using.
Making oil into soap requires a process called “saponification” which is an organic chemical reaction using an alkali (potassium hydroxide) to react with a fat (coconut, jojoba, olive oils) to produce soap. It’s completely natural and retains the natural qualities of the oils while allowing the product to foam and clean the skin. This is the process we use here at Rocky Mountain Soap Company to create our castile soaps.
