Friday, February 5, 2010

Frugal Homemade Liquid Hand Soap

A couple of years ago, when I started making my own laundry detergent and dishwasher detergent, I had hopes of making my own liquid hand soap.  I never did get around to trying it until yesterday.  A dear friend of mine asked me if I had a good recipe for it.  I said I had never tried one, but thanked her for the reminder to try making it!  One of my favorite websites to go to for natural recipes is The Family Homestead.  Naturally (no pun intended), I went there first.  Of course she would have one!  :)  I used Crystal's recipe and also read a few other recipes on the web and got a few ideas about making it.  I was so excited when I was finished (and figured out how inexpensive it was to make), that I had my husband give me a "high five"!  LOL!!!  :)

Here is what I did:
You can view the basic recipe at The Family Homestead.
I used one bar of Trader Joe's Oatmeal & Honey Soap (which is pure vegetable soap) cost $.75
3 tbsp. of glycerin (8 oz. for $4.99 at CVS)--cost in recipe approx. $.93
8 cups of water (basically free) :)
I did not add any essential oils for fragrance, as the soap had a nice fragrance to it already.

After following Crystal's recipe and the soap had coagulated (the best way to describe it, I guess), I took the advice of another website and whipped portions of the soap in my blender (she did it while she was making it, I whipped it after it was all finished).  It got so smooth and  I was having so much fun!  :)
My efforts made 88 oz. of liquid hand soap!!!  :)  It only cost $1.68 for the ingredients.  That comes out to $.15 per 8 ounce bottle of soap!  Wow!!!!!!
Now, I had to test it out, of course.  I would say that this soap isn't as "sudsy" as other soap, but it was very smooth and got my hands clean.  I am looking forward to experimenting with other bar soaps in the recipe.  Trader Joe's has a peppermint bar soap that I think would be fun to use!
Let me know if you give this a try.....remember, it's helping us "2 Make Ends Meet"!  (and having a little fun while we are doing it!)  :) Pin It Print Friendly and PDF

3 comments make me happy:

  1. Thank you for this recipe! I hadn't seen it on Crystal's website.

    I think there will be some cheers around here, my latest try at making it a couple of weeks ago was not so well received, they all thought the littlest one had watered it down (actually, I had!)

    I'll bet the glycerin is the key to thickening. And the Trader Joe's bar sounds like it would smell wonderful! I wonder if the homemade soaps at Mississippi Market would work? I'll check it out next time I'm there.

    Thanks again!

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  2. Since previous attempts at making my own soap without any recipe failed (as mentioned above) I was quite excited and went out to Trader Joe's and got wonderful soaps and then to Walgreen's to get the glycerin.

    Word to the wise: don't go to Walgreen's to get the glycerin! I couldn't find it so asked at the pharmacy and was told that they had to pull it because the DHS said it is used by terrorists to make bombs (I'm sure they all just lined up daily to get it at their corner pharmacy!)

    Just wanted to save you all a trip.

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  3. I am anxious to hear how it goes for you, Natasha! :)

    ReplyDelete

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