Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Week of Tips I Love: Tip #2- Homemade Foaming Hand Soap


Fact 1: I nerd out on soap. Full-on nerd out. The baskets of beautifully wrapped soap at Anthropologie? I'm a gonner. The aisle of cool soap at Target? Forget it. Prunella Soap being on vacation forever? Saddening. I love soap.

Fact 2: Soap is expensive. There, I said it. Soap is getting really pricey. Why is it so expensive these days?

Fact 3: As my health remains precarious, I'm getting more selective about what I put on (and in) my body. All these chemicals? Not good. They're not good at all. I'm becoming more proactive about what I use and what I buy.

Add all these together and you get why I've started making all of our hand soap around here. And it's so easy! Today I show you how I do it, and if you're so inclined, maybe you'll find a method (and a new soap!) that works for you, too!

Okay, first off: there are a hundred bazillion "recipes" out there for making hand soap. I've adapted this one from several methods, changing it up until I found a soap I liked. Adapt it to your preferences, by all means.

What You Need to Make Foaming Hand Soap:
  •  A foaming soap dispenser such as this one or this glass one. I have glass ones in the bathrooms but am reusing a plastic dispenser in the kitchen. Any dispenser will do, but if you plan to make a citrus-based scented soap, glass would be best.
  • 2 Tablespoons castile soap. I like Dr. Bronner's Magic unscented soap. It's pricey up front, but it lasts for ages and is gentle enough for everyday use and delicate skin.
  • 1-2 teaspoons coconut oil. After purchasing this from the grocery store for awhile, I now go with doTerra's fractionated coconut oil. This is the renewing part of the soap. It nourishes my skin without leaving a greasy or gummy residue. Like the castile soap, this also lasts forever... and it has no odor and doesn't stain.
  • 5 drops tea tree oil (Melaleuca). This is the purifying part of the soap. You can skip if you'd like, but Melaleuca is a known cleansing super star, so I add it... and even more during cold and flu season.
  • 5-10 drops essential oils. Here's where you make it yours. Lavender, Wild Orange, Rose, Grapefruit, Lemon... there are hundreds of single oils or oil blends to choose from! I'm using doTerra's Lavender now, but will likely change it up next month for fall, etc. I'm new on my essential oil journey, but I'm astounded by how oils have improved our lives so dramatically already! 
 How To Make Foaming Hand Soap:  
  1.  Add castile soap and coconut oil to your soap dispenser. Gently swish to combine.
  2.  Use a dropper (or carefully pour) essential oils in. Again, swish to combine.
  3.  Fill container with clean water (filtered or purified, if you'd like).
  4.  Gently shake to mix.
That's all there is to it! This method makes 9-11 fl. oz. of soap, but if your container is larger, simply up the soap and oils proportionately.

By my best math guesstimations, a dispenser of this soap costs me roughly $2.11 to make. Since a bottle lasts about 3 weeks around here, that comes to around 10 cents a day per bottle. Not bad!

You should know: when friends and family come over and use this soap, they will ask about it. And, if they're anything like my people, they will ask for it! I've discovered that with a handmade dish cloth or nail brush, etc., a pretty dispenser of this soap makes thoughtful gift. Actually, it would make a fantastic friend or teacher gift, wouldn't it?

Here's to improving our health and our homes, one pump of soap at a time! Hope you enjoy. -Brin

(By the way, this post contains some affiliate links to Amazon. I add these because they directly and easily connect you to the products I like and use, and Amazon gives me a tiny percentage of any sales that may result from this post. Links like these make my blogging possible... if only so I can prove to my husband that photographing soap dispensers is not a waste of time. Heehee.)

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Not only do we have Sonic iced tea and white trucks in common, we both use doTerra. Thanks for the recipe. I'll give it a try. :)

rachel said...

Do you have to heat it at all to get ingredients to combine? Coconut oil is usually solid at room temp. here. Maybe heat it gently in a pan and leave to cool before bottling?
Look good, I'm going to try it this weekend. Thankyou!
((And yes, please write more about EO's. I love them and am always curious how other people use theirs. Bergamot and lemon are my favourites to combine when I need an energy boost.))

Brin said...

Thanks, Lorri... we do have a growing list of cool things in common! :) Good luck with your soap.

Hi Rachel! I use fractionated coconut oil... it stays liquid no matter the temperature and is easy to pour/dispense. I haven't tried making this foaming soap with non-fractionated oil, but I imagine there would be complications with solidifying. Try using grapeseed (or similar oil) instead, or picking up a bottle of something similar to the coconut oil linked in the post. ...I hope you enjoy this soap, and yes: I plan to do a LOT more blogging on EOs. I'm a huge convert.

Cindy Brick said...

You're sure the coconut oil won't make everything greasy, Brin? I have problems feeling sticky when using it. (And I don't want to smell like a Mounds bar.)
I may try this, on your recommendation...

Just wrote about you yesterday:

http://cindybrick.blogspot.com/2015/08/great-comfort.html