Homemade Hand Soap

I have been making homemade laundry detergent for quite some time now.  It was a financial savior for us.  I've never been able to count how much laundry we do here, but it averages 2-5 loads a day.  I was using a bottle of detergent almost every 2-3 days.  It seems to be becoming more mainstream and more people I know are doing it.  That being said, being a homeschooling mom of four, the people I am able to know at this point in my life are a tighter circle of minds.  About a year ago, I was out of hand soap and I started wondering if I could use the same idea with a bar of ivory.  I grated it and added water to it and made a gallon of hand soap.  It was a little stringy, but it did the trick.  A gallon for less than a dollar.  I was spending far more on the refill bottles, so I was happy!

Thanks to the lovely world of Pinterest, I have found that I wasn't the only one who had this idea.  I found 3 or 4 different versions of hand soap and a lot of comments to figure out how I could improve on my own.  The main problem now is when you pump the soap into your hand it hangs in a string from the pump instead of breaking off.  We've been using it so long we've just adapted the way we use the pump...no biggie, but I figured I would give some of the suggestions a shot.  Here is the one I ended on.

Homemade Hand Soap by the Gallon

Materials

1 bar of soap (I used Dr. Bonner's Lavender)

2 TBS of liquid glycerin

1 gallon jug

1 medium sauce pan

1 cheese grater

warm water

Directions:  Grate the bar of soap into the pan.  Fill 3/4 of the way with water.  Heat on med.  Stirring until soap dissolves (this will vary on different soaps).  Add glycerin.  Allow to cool.  Add to gallon jug.  Fill to near top with warm water.  Shake.  Allow to sit overnight, it should solidify within 24-48 hours.

I am not a 100% positive that the addition of glycerin helped all that much.  My health food store also only had a large bottle and it was $10.  In the end, I'm not adding that much cost to my liquid soap, but up front that was more than I wanted to spend.  I also have started using Dr. Bonner's which runs $3-4, but it doesn't contain sulfates. I am glad that it is still cheap, that way when my kids decide to "make bubbles" I am not washing so much money down the drain.

Love and Butter,

Mishelle

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