I’m from the U.K. my dude/dudette, I would ideally like something I can pick up at my local supermarket as part of my normal grocery shop. I have never seen a Kirk’s in there but honestly haven’t been looking out for it. I’ll check it out but it’s unlikely as we often have different brand availability in our two countries.
If I can’t find it, can I just confirm the below is what you’re talking about which I can purchase online?
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kirks-Natural-Castile-Soap-Original/dp/B001D4YDKU
oil paint is cleaned off your hands with soap or a solvent. I have bog-standard boring castile soap that I use for my hands.
When you're doing painting: when done with a brush for that color - wipe the brush on some old newspaper/cloth/paper towel to get the bulk paint out, then clean the brushes with Gamsol - odorless mineral spirits. I use a Silicoil brush washer. Some people rinse with walnut oil. I change my brush washing gamsol about once every 4-5 months, and top it off periodically.
To clean your brushes after you're done painting: use the solvent as above to clean out your brushes of the bulk of the paint. Then, take the brush to the sink, wipe the brush with castile soap (I actually use masters brush cleaner, but plain white castile soap works), and rinse out the paint from the brush. Keep doing that until no paint is left in the brush.
I do that process with my acrylic and watercolor brushes too, by the way. Gotta give the brushes some lovin' so they stick around!
Artist pigments treat toxicity seriously. Watercolor, acrylic, oil. All use the same pigments pretty much. Cadmiums, chromiums, pthalos, quinacridones, etc. In practical purposes, what this means for us as oil painters, particularly those without a highly specialized studio: Don't use lead. Don't sand colors without a mask. Don't eat the stuff.
Solvents are your big toxicity risk, as they vaporize and can get on your body.
Turpentine passes through a number of body barriers. It's really bad for you long-term. Gamsol is much better for you. Most of the natural solvents are all about as bad as turpentine, although the jury is still out on oil of spike lavender. I use turpentine about once every two months for an evening- I love the smell. But it's not good to get on your hands. I avoid getting solvents on my hands, but I don't freak if I do. I like the smell of oil paint, so meh if it's on my skin, I'll soap it off later.
There's a whole solvent-free system out there, but you wind up with a higher risk of oil rag fires, and I don't have the set up for managing that. And, too, some stuff is only feasible with solvents.
Eyup. That's how it is. Don't add too much poppy oil to your ultramarine/quinacridone mixes or you'll have a couple months to wait.