Homemade Liquid Hand Soap

I thought I would go down this road and try to make my own liquid hand soap.  It's scary what is put into various products that we use.  I figure it wouldn't hurt to try this out and see how it works.

My first attempt at making homemade liquid hand soap was using Ashley's Homemade Adventure's recipe found here.  This recipe if for making liquid castile soap but Ashley does use it in hand soap dispensers.  Why not give it a try, right?

The recipe is as follows:

Homemade Liquid Castile Soap:
1. Grate 1 bar of Kirk’s castile bar soap into large pot or container.
2. Add 10 cups hot water, stir and cover.
3. Let sit 24 hours, stir.

soap looks pretty when grated

then it looks like soap again when melted

I was not crazy about the scent of Kirk's soap.  It reminded me a lot of Dove soap (I'm not a huge fan of Dove soap).  I'm wondering if I could add some essential oil to change up the scent?

I waited the 24 hours and was quite hopeful.  It's just going to be used as liquid hand soap refill.

I was surprised to see that it remained watery.  I guess I expected it to be a little thicker like hand soap that you buy at the store. 

I put it in a couple of soap dispensers and waited for the results. 

I found the soap to be on the watery side (when used in the hand soap dispenser) and decided to give it a try as a body wash.  As a body wash it was okay.  The scent wasn't as bad, either.  I think if I do this again I would go with a little less water (say 8 cups instead of 10). 

What to do about hand soap refills?

I found another recipe for hand soap refill on the Farmer's Nest blog (right here)  and decided to give this one a try.

For this soap, she uses one bar of Meyer's Clean Day soap.  I did not realize how difficult it would be to find a bar of this soap!  I looked everywhere and was unable to locate Mrs. Meyer's soap bars.  I did not want to order online and wait for the soap, so, I settled on a Green Tea soap I purchased at Trader Joe's.  I love the smell and thought it would be perfect for liquid hand soap.

This recipe is as follows:

2 Tablespoons of Liquid Glycerin (found in the band aid section at any drugstore or grocery store)
1 - 8 oz bar of soap
1 gallon of distilled water

The bar of soap I bought was 7 ounces. 

I know, I should have looked at it when I bought it.  My mistake.  I adjusted the water to 1 gallon of water minus 16 ounces.  I also did not use the liquid glycerin.  I wasn't sure if this would be a problem.  I figured I could always go back and add it later.

I grated my soap.

Melted the soap.

And waited.

Yikes!  Look how thick the soap became over night!

I used the hand mixer and got to work.  I thought it might be too thick and added back 8 ounces of (distilled) water.  As she says on The Farmer's Nest, it has to reach a "snot like" consistency.
I put it into a couple of hand soap dispensers and the rest went back into the empty gallon from the distilled water. 

*Make sure that you have a few dispensers to fill when you decide to make this hand soap.  I filled three dispensers and the gallon.

*Make sure that you label the gallon container.  You do not want anyone mistaking it for milk!

We have been using this soap for awhile.  I love the scent and found it quite easy to make.  I will definitely be making more again.  Probably not too soon, I have a full gallon of soap to use before I make more.

**UPDATE:  I went to fill up my soap dispensers and the soap was not liquid (more of a jello-like substance) in the container.  I had to cut open the container, put it back into a pot and warm it up.  I added another 24 ounces of water and used the hand held blender to mix it.  I filled up the dispensers (all except the one in the kitchen, which still has the old, store bought liquid soap).  I kept the soap in the pot over night to make sure that it wouldn't harden.  I say harden, but, it becomes like jello.  You want it "snot like."  All was well so I filled another container, plus had some to put in an additional jar.  My suggestion is to let it sit to make sure you don't have this problem before storing the rest of your soap.  Also, make sure you have several extra containers to store liquid in, and lots of soap dispensers to fill.  Hope this helps!  :)