A squirt into hot running water, not onto the sponge. Why the technique matters more here than in any other castile soap use, and what to expect on grease.
Dish soap is where people are most likely to judge castile soap harshly, because the comparison is against a product engineered to do exactly one thing. Commercial dish liquid is a synthetic detergent with foam boosters and grease-cutting surfactants. Castile soap is soap. It works, but the technique is different.
Hand-Washing Dishes: Add a squirt to hot running water when washing dishes in the sink.
The important part is to the water, not to the sponge. Squeezing concentrated soap onto a sponge and scrubbing wastes it and gives you less cleaning, not more. Let the running water do the diluting and the agitating.
Soap lifts grease by surrounding it, and heat thins grease so there is less of it to surround. With a synthetic detergent you can get away with lukewarm water. With soap you cannot. Run it as hot as your hands can stand, or use gloves and run it hotter.
If you have hard water, soap reacts with the dissolved minerals and forms a film. On dishes that shows up as a dull cast on glassware. Two things help: use a little more soap, and add a rinse of water with a splash of vinegar at the end.
Do not put the vinegar in the wash water. Soap is alkaline and vinegar is acidic, so mixing them directly breaks the soap back down into an oily curd that cleans nothing. Vinegar belongs in the rinse, after the soap is gone.
It handles everyday plates, glasses, cutlery and lightly greasy pans well. Baked-on residue and heavy grease want a soak first: hot water and a squirt of soap, twenty minutes, then wash normally. This soap contains no enzymes and no synthetic degreasers, so it is not going to dissolve a roasting pan on contact.
It is also worth being clear that soap cleans, it does not sanitize. Nothing in the recipe is a disinfectant claim.
Do not put liquid castile soap in an automatic dishwasher. It foams enormously in a machine designed for low-foam detergent, and you will spend the evening mopping.
Yohan & Alex
Co-founders, Whole Naturals
For external use only. Keep out of reach of children. Discontinue use if irritation, redness or discomfort occurs.
