What is Bastille Soap? No, there are no guillotines involved ;P nor is this soap from France.
Bastille is a term coined by soap makers for soap that is made with a high percentage of olive oil to differentiate it from Castile Soap. Castile is 100% olive oil soap, and Bastille is soap made with at least 70% olive oil along with other vegetable oils and/or butters.
High olive oil percentage soaps are very gently cleansing and skin conditioning bars making them excellent for dry or sensitive skin. They are very popular as facial and specialty soaps for that reason. So why not play around with some mini batches of a basic bastille recipe and different additives just for fun.
Aren't these mini test batches so adorable? Here I'm using an olive oil, coconut oil, shea butter, and castor oil recipe with a 6% superfat, and a 10% water discount. Since this soap uses so much olive oil, it could take a long time to unmold without removing some of the water from the recipe allowing the bars to set up firmer faster.
1- No additives. A control soap
2- Soap Nut tea as 25% of the lye solution
3- Soap Nut tea as 50% of the lye solution
4- Honey
5- Dead Sea mud
6- Rose powder
7- Chamomile powder
8- Silk aminos
9- Combination of silk, rose, and honey
10- Dead Sea mud and honey
These little test soaps are sitting on the curing rack, doing that very import stage of maturation before they are ready to be used. All soaps improve with more curing time, and high olive oil soaps especially can transform how they lather. Will report how these do in the future here on the blog!