The product I use most
Castile soap is made for personal care, but can also double as a multi-surface household cleaner. Indeed, it’s the cleaner I use most in my health-based cleaning service.
Pure castile soap is the only cleaner processed entirely without petrochemicals or synthetic ingredients, to my knowledge. That’s only fitting for use in my service.
Dr. Bronner’s is the brand I use most. It works beautifully, and is widely available in retail stores. Certain other brands may meet my standards. But at this time, I’m too busy with customers to screen them all.
You can find tips for using Dr. Bronner’s on Going Green With a Bronner Mom blog. And for ingredients, read on!
Ingredients
Dr. Bronner’s uses the same ingredients for all its liquid soap formulas. The only difference between formulas is their different essential oils, of which peppermint is only one. Baby Mild is the same formula, but with no essential oil.
Here’s the ingredient list for Dr. Bronner’s peppermint formula. It’s the formula I use the most.
INGREDIENTS: Water, Organic Coconut Oil*, Potassium Hydroxide**, Organic Palm Kernel Oil*, Organic Olive Oil*, Mentha Arvensis, Organic Hemp Oil, Organic Jojoba Oil, Mentha Piperita, Citric Acid, Tocopherol
*CERTIFIED FAIR TRADE INGREDIENTS
** None remains after saponifying oils into soap & glycerin.
No petrochemical or animal ingredients
I asked Dr. Bronner’s to verify that its castile soaps contain no petrochemicals or animal ingredients. Following is the company’s response.
No animal products or petrol derivatives are used to make the castile soaps. The castile soaps are entirely vegan, and made with organic vegetable oils.
Our castile liquid soaps and bar soaps are certified by Oregon Tilth. Because the liquid soap especially has a higher volume of water content (to make it liquid, obviously!) it doesn’t meet the percentage threshold for the USDA Organic certification.
However, we have a line of soaps and other personal care products (including shave soaps, body lotions, hair cremes, hair conditioning rinse) that are certified USDA Organic to the same standards as organic foods.
Indeed, the line of products that are certified USDA Organic are also certified by Oregon Tilth. So, you see how it gets tricky!
And finally, we do make lip balms that are USDA Organic certified and Oregon Tilth certified, that use organic beeswax. So not all of our personal care products are vegan. The lip balms, like all our personal care products, are Leaping Bunny certified, to ensure they have not been tested on animals.
— Lauren Stansbury, Dr. Bronner’s Public Affairs & Media Relations Representative, 2015
Published 2015