Dr. Bronner's Magic Pure Castile Liquid Soap Bodywash - Lavender - 16 fl oz: Vegan, Paraben-Free, Whole Body, Non-Toxic

A: Thank you for reaching out to us at Dr. Bronner's! While you can dilute our Pure-Castile Liquid soap, rest assured that this is not necessary for all uses and mostly comes down to preference. For example, some may prefer just pouring a few drops into their hands for handwashing, and others may prefer to dilute our soap at a 1:3 ratio in a foaming pump. It's truly up to you and your needs. However, there are a couple of things to keep in mind when first getting started with our Pure-Castile Soap. Firstly, our soap is 2 - 3 times more concentrated than most soaps on the market; therefore, less is definitely more. Additionally, diluting our soap with water does reduce its shelf life because we do not add any harsh preservatives to our products. Generally, diluting with tap or filtered water results in a shelf life of about 2 weeks to a month, while dilutions with distilled water can last up to 6 months. Using distilled water can also reduce natural soap separation that may occur with hard water. Please keep in mind that we encourage cleaning your containers out thoroughly before refilling them with diluted soap to promote freshness from batch to batch. Lastly, it's important to note that our Liquid Soap does not work well with pump dispensers. We have tested a variety of pumps and dilutions over the years with little success. Inevitably, the very concentrated soap clogs the pump. We recommend keeping the soap in its original bottle and using just a drop or two for each handwashing. On the other hand, our Liquid Soap does works very well in foaming dispensers. Foaming dispensers “thicken” the soap with water and air producing a velvety cloud of soap. If you decide to use a foaming dispenser, make sure to dilute the soap at a ratio of 1 part soap to 3 parts water. Here are some suggested ratio examples: 8 oz. bottle = 2 oz. soap and 6 oz. water 12 oz. bottle = 3 oz. soap and 9 oz. water For an extensive guide on recipes and applications for our products, we highly recommend checking out Lisa Bronner's blog, Going Green with Lisa Bronner (https://www.lisabronner.com/), where she provides incredibly handy dilution cheat sheets (https://www.lisabronner.com/dilutions-cheat-sheet-for-dr-bronners-castile-soap/). Should you have any further questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to reach out!

A: Thank you for contacting Dr. Bronner’s! Our Soaps work exceptionally well to clean hair; however, the process may require a bit of tinkering to fit your specific needs. We encourage you to use this as a guide and to tweak anything we recommend to best fit your desired outcome. If there’s one important thing to remember about washing your hair with Dr. Bronner’s before washing, it’s that we strongly encourage you to follow up with an acidic rinse. Due to the alkalinity of our soap, they can leave a tangly look and feel. An acidic rinse not only conditions your hair but also can tamp down the cuticles in your hair and give it a smooth and silky after-feel. We recommend using our conditioning Organic Hair Rinse, which is specially formulated for this purpose and uses a base of organic lemon juice, but you may easily substitute it for a vinegar or lemon juice dilution. If you are interested in these alternatives, we encourage you to use them in a spray bottle for the most control and ease of use. We recommend diluting any kind of vinegar with equal parts water, at a 1:1 ratio, and diluting one part lemon juice with two parts water at a 1:2 ratio due to its higher acidity. Additionally, be sure to strain and properly store your lemon juice as it is not a shelf-stable ingredient. To learn more about shampooing with our soaps, please check out our definitive guide on drbornner.com or Lisa Bronner’s amazing blog post, From Shampoo to Soap – My Story (https://www.lisabronner.com/from-shampoo-to-soap-my-story/). Here are the instructions from our website: 1) Shampoo with your favorite Dr. Bronner’s soap (Castile or Sugar Soap), and rinse this off. There is no need to dilute even if you are using our Pure-Castile Liquid Soap. Just start with a dime-sized amount in your palm and lather it into your hair. The water present in the shower is enough to dilute the applied soap. 2) Important: Rinsing with our Organic Hair Rinse (after rinsing the soap out), results in a spectacular look and feel! Just stir 1- 2 capfuls of this rinse into a cup of water, close your eyes, and slowly pour while massaging into your hair. Keep hand-combing your hair until hair feels entirely sleek (~30 seconds). Rinse out well. Repeat, if necessary, in extra hard water conditions or with longer hair. As mentioned above, you may substitute this for any other acidic rinse. Just be sure that all of the soap has been rinsed out of our hair before applying. 3) Optional: Either after rinsing your hair or after drying lightly with a towel, massage in our Organic Hair Crème for added silkiness and softness. You can decide to rinse this product out like a traditional conditioner, or you can use it as a leave-in conditioner/styling crème. Again, using our soaps as shampoos can be a long process for some people, as your hair needs to adapt to using a true soap since this product is not a shampoo. It can take a lot of trial and error and tinkering with the dilutions. However, if this is simply not compatible with your hair, then it may not be for you. Please rest assured that you do not have to dilute the soaps when using them as a shampoo or body wash. However, you can use a dilution ratio of 1:3 (1 part soap to 3 parts water), to get started and adjust to your personal preference. Also, when diluting our soaps, we recommend that you use the dilution up within the first 2 weeks to a month. This is because we do not use any harsh preservatives that will allow the soap to last much longer than 1 month after being diluted. Distilled water is recommended. Lastly, please note that if you have color-treated hair, we do not recommend that you use our soaps. We know this was a lot of information to throw at you, so if you have any future questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

A: Hi, thank you for your interest in Dr. Bronner's! While both our Pure-Castile Liquid Soap and Sal Suds Biodegradable Cleaner can work very well to clean leather car interiors, it is important to reach out to the manufacturer in the case that there is a special cleaner for this surface. Rest assured that if the finish manufacturer calls for a mild cleaner, both all-purpose sprays fit the bill. If you have a surface that is unusual, spot-testing is always a good idea. While Castile Soap is a great cleaner, Sal Suds is great for spot-treating carpets and for cleaning leather and microfiber furniture. It’s also great on cars and for degreasing engines. Depending on what you have on hand, either the Sal Suds All-Purpose Spray (1 Tbsp. in a quart of water) or the Castile All-Purpose Spray (¼ c. in a quart of water) will do a quick clean. If the leather needs to be nourished, you may want to consider a leather polish made from ⅓ c. vinegar with ⅔ c. olive oil and ½ tsp. pure essential lemon oil. Shake this up and rub it on with a soft rag. We do want to mention that if you are using our Pure-Castile Soap and have hard water, it is possible to encounter some mineral build-up. Rest assured that this is completely normal as the interaction of hard water, and even soft water, with any true soap (not synthetic detergent-based soaps), can leave behind a thin film of minerals that appears as residue or “soap scum. Please note that our products are not specifically formulated for interior car cleaning, and we have not tested them for all types of fabrics, including vegan leather. Our Organic Hand and Body Lotion, Organic Hair Crème, and Organic Hand Sanitizer are the only products we currently manufacture that contain alcohol as an ingredient. Should you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us.

A: Hi Ns, Thank you for reaching out. If you would like to use our products for babies or young children, we recommend using our Baby Unscented Castile Soap. Please note that none of our products are tear free, so we recommend keeping this product away from the eyes. We also recommend adding a few drops of soap to a washcloth, or diluting the soap a bit. Please check out the Going Green Blog Blog article: "Using Castile Baby Mild Soap on Babies" https://www.lisabronner.com/using-castile-baby-mild-soap-on-babies/

A: Hello AC, the main difference is the scent. The Dr. Bronner's 18-In-1 Hemp Pure-Castile Liquid Soap contains peppermint and the Dr. Bronner's Pure Castile Soap contains lavender. For all your future beauty questions, get real-time answers using the “Chat with a Virtual Beauty Consultant” button, found on every product page! :)

A: Soap that is labeled as “antibacterial” is any soap or detergent that has had active microbial ingredients added to it. Because our soap does not have these specific ingredients added to it, it cannot be labeled as “antibacterial.” However, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration published a report indicating that soap and water is just as effective in mechanically removing microbes as antibacterial soap is at killing microbes. In addition, antibacterial soap can kill “good” microbes along with the bad, and often contains known toxins such as Triclosan. For these reasons we believe our soap is ultimately safer and just as effective as an antibacterial agent, even though is not labeled as such.