Homemade Foaming Soap

Since it's been awhile since I've blogged a DIY recipe, I thought I'd post this creation that I literally use every day in my house.  It is made with Dr. Bronner's liquid soap and can be used for simply washing your hands, doing dishes, washing your face, you name it!  I've washed my babies with this soap, my pets, my laundry, I could go on and on....((Huge fan right here!!))

Those that know me well, know that I purged my home of ALL products from that famous Mall Store that has all the great smelly lotions and soaps for sale.  I admit, I was a lover of that store and  their products, ......until I educated myself about the chemicals inside them.  But, I did keep the handy-dandy foam soap dispenser containers to refill and make with my own (safe) soap.  Here's how I do it:


First:  Clean out and old "foaming" soap container.  Must have the special top that makes it foam or all you will get is liquid water when you pump it! ;-)

Second:  Find your soap of choice.  I use Dr. Bronner's Peppermint for almost everything because I love the scent.  But, you can use any liquid soap you choose.

Third:  Pour the liquid soap into the container.  As you can see, you do NOT need much, maybe a few tablespoons... ****this is very important!  if you use too much soap, it will clog the dispenser and not work correctly at all, LESS is more for this one*****

Lastly, slowly fill with water and twist the top back on.  Pump a few times and VIOLA!  Foaming soap!!  Works every time!  I've been reusing this bottle for ages!!

If you would like to learn more about Dr. Bronner soaps, you can click HERE.

Making liquid soap from bar soap....

While shopping with my Mom this week, I found a really good quality (all natural, made is USA, chemical free) bar soap at a local discount store.  One of the scents I loved was Lemongrass, because (if you read my prior post on mosquitoes) the bugs HATE it.  I grabbed it for 3.99 and knew it would be perfect for our outside shower at the camp!  Then I remembered, it's a "bar" soap.  Any and all bar soaps at the camp end up one place....the drain.  The outside elements just wreak havoc on it.  It does get a bit "pricey" to keep purchasing the all natural soaps only to have them "melt" away so quickly.  So I thought:  "Maybe I can melt it down into a liquid pump type shower soap?"......

After looking online at many, many recipes (I was surprised that so many others thought about doing this too!!)-- I found quite a variety of ways to make this happen.  Decided to try one and see how it goes.  This way, I can get the same benefits of the Lemongrass scent, but not have it melt away in a day due to the outdoor environment!

This is what you will need:  

4 ou. bar of your favorite all natural soap

2 Tablespoons vegetable glycerin

3/4 gallon-ish of distilled water

cheese grater
recycled container (I used an old gallon vinegar container)
whisk or electric mixer

The process I followed went like this:

 This photo is obviously not the lemongrass soap ---- I already shredded it before I thought about  photos for the blog, but you get the idea.  It's the same exact soap, just a different scent.  This soap is 4 ounces.

Next, grab your cheese grater (or pick up a cheepie at the dollar store) ...OR...if you're lucky to have a Kitchen Aid mixer with the shredder attachment, then use that and save yourself a ton of elbow grease!  LOL--shred the entire bar until it looks exactly like cheese (except smells much, much, better!)

Next, grab a gallon of distilled water.  Now, most of the recipes I read varied on the amounts of water to use.  Some folks used 8 ounce bars of soap, some used 5 ounces, to 1 gallon of water.   So, I used this much water (about 3/4) for my 4 ounce soap.  I do not mind a thinner pump soap, it still works well with a mesh body scrubber!  Pour the water into a large pot and bring to a boil.

Add 2 Tbl. of vegetable glycerin.  I purchased this bottle online a while back, but I'm sure you can purchase it at any natural food store.

Add the shredded soap to the water and glycerin.  Remove from heat and mix until all the shreds are melted.  It basically looks like soapy water at this point.
Add the shredded soap to the water and glycerin.  Remove from heat and mix until all the shreds are melted.  It basically looks like soapy water at this point.  Let the mixture sit OVERNIGHT.  Trust me, I kept going back to check it, and was pretty disappointed to keep finding it a complete liquid, so I just left it on the dining room table for the evening....when I awoke, viola!  it was looking more like this:

Yes, I know...it looks just like snot!  LOL!!  But that is the consistency you are basically looking for!  I took my handy whisk and mixed it up a bit more, grabbed a funnel and a well rinsed old vinegar bottle (you can use any well rinsed container to hold your mixture, then add it to your pump soap dispensers, etc..)

And this is what the final product looked like.  One 4 oz. bar soap made me a little more than a half gallon of liquid soap!  Not bad!  I feel that I probably could have added even more water and thinned it out even more, and may just do that on my next batch!!  This was a pretty easy DIY project and will save you tons of $$ on purchasing chemical free soap for your home!  Enjoy!!!