Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Homemade hand soap

I saw this recipe for homemade hand soap on Tipnut.com and thought we'd give it a try.
Here's what you need:

1 bar of soap
1 TBS. glycerin
1 tsp. honey
water

THAT'S IT!!!

First, grate bar of soap into small flakes, pour in blender. I don't have a blender so I just used my food processor.

Add 1 cup boiling water and whip.
Add 1/2 cup room temperature water and stir in blender.
Add honey and glycerin, stir.
Allow mix to cool (15 minutes) then whip again.
(and yes, Danny is wearing a clip on tie...I'm not sure why.)

Top off mixture with 5-6 cups of cool water then mix again. I had to move the mixture to my biggest bowl at this point. Between the soap and the foam, my mixer was almost overflowing! I had no trouble mixing in all the water with just a wisk.
Pour into containers and allow to cool (do not put lids or caps on yet).
After an hour, close containers. Soap mixture will thicken up.
Shake before using as needed.

I stored my soap in an old laundry detergent bottle I had cleaned out. I really like this soap! It's light and creamy and smells super clean. I think we'll be using this recipe for a long time!
I did make one change to the recipe, I used a vitamin E body oil instead of the glycerin and it worked just fine. I also debated using my coconut oil, which I will probably use next time. I also might use an essential oil like lavender or lemon!

I also don't see why you couldn't make this with herbal infused water. Just boil a handful of herbs, like comfrey, in 6 cups of water and allow to cool. Strain herbs out before adding to soap mixture.

I bought a three pack of Ivory soap for a buck. The vitamin E oil was $2. We always have honey on hand so I didn't even factor that into the cost. It looks like I was able to make 8 cups of soap for a grand total of .65!

Next, on to homemade laundry detergent!

3 comments:

Rachel said...

I haven't made the homemade hand soap yet, but did make the detergent a couple of weeks ago. SO far, no problems with the laundry detergent (super easy, too).

I was going to ask--HEY! Where'd you find the glycerin--only to find out you didn't use it! LOL. But where did you get the VitE oil? Health food store?

JoAnnC. said...

I got the oil at Walmart. If I went to the health food store they probably would have charged me 10 bucks for a 2oz. bottle!
I really like this soap and can't wait to try homemade laundry detergent! It should really save us some $$$ with all the laundry we do!

Rachel said...

I kwym about $ we all put out for laundry detergent. I did find that I couldn't get washing soda locally, had to go online and order it directly from the source (Amazon didn't have it)...

Thanks for the head's up on Walmart/VitE oil! I'll have to remember that when I am stocking up. I didn't find Fels Naptha anywhere, but did find Zote (a good laundry bar soap) at one of our local stores. Nice and pink with a slightly citrus scent.