The 1st experiments: liquid hand soap

So, this weekend I made the following, all from scratch*:

• liquid hand soap
• liquid dish soap
• mouthwash
• deodorant
• fabric softener
• wrinkle releaser*
• room refresher spray
• re-usable disinfectant wipes
• shampoo

(* The wrinkle releaser was actually made from store bought fabric softener. I had a little bit left over, but wanted to switch to the homemade stuff, so am using it for the wrinkle releaser until it is gone, then I will switch to the homemade fabric softener for that recipe as well...waste not, save more!)

Here's how these first ones worked out. 

Let me start by saying that not one of these products took more than 10 minutes to make. The one requiring the most time was the liquid hand soap, because it needed to be grated then melted on the stove. It then had to cool, but did that all on its own, with no help from me! :-)

So let's start with that one, as it is the one I started with yesterday! Here is the lovely blog where I got my recipe from.

I used a bar of NUK brand moisturizing baby soap with chamomile and grated it into a big bowl. It took about 3 minutes to get the whole bar done and I ended up with just over 1 cup of soap flakes. I then added 1 Tbs of vegetable glycerin, 6 drops of tea tree oil for the antiseptic properties, 10 cups of tap water and stirred the whole thing up. 

I then poured that into a big stew pot that I have reserved for this purpose (won't be used for food anymore), and turned the heat on. The recipe called for medium heat and said it would take about 2 minutes but I was nervous about burning it (I am a lousy cook and hubby man is usually the one who uses the stove) so i set the heat to low. After about 4 minutes, the stuff still wasn't melted, so I turned the heat up, and then it really did only take about 2 minutes. So the mid-heat level seems to definitely be the way to go! I just kept stirring the mixture sporadically whilst it was on the heat. 

After all of the soap flakes had melted, and the mixture was looking very cloudy I took it off the heat and set it aside to cool. It was very watery, and I was worried that it wouldn't work very well, but hoped maybe it would thicken as it cooled. Then I left it to its own devices and went on to a different project.

After about 2 hours, I came back to it and it had cooled completely,  but was still very watery. So I took a spoon and scooped some out and dumped it on my hands...oh my...it was so soft and made my hands feel so good and it smelled amazing. So I got my hubby to hold 2 re-purposed plastic soap dispensers and funneled the mixture into them, then put the left-overs into a re-purposed coke zero bottle. This recipe made enough to fill the two soap dispensers, and the 2L coke bottle. So I won't need to make more for awhile. 

It was still really watery, but about two hours later, when I went to wash my hands, I noticed the mixture had thickened up in the dispensers. It is now a great consistency, although it does come out better if you give the bottle a quick shake before pumping it out!

I love this homemade soap, and I think, depending on the bar soap you use, you could tailor the smell and qualities to your personal tastes. If you give it a go with a different brand, let me know how it works out!

**Update**
The consistency of this soap continued to thicken. It is now very snot like, and you have to be careful to grab it away from the dispenser or it just dribbles down. I still like the smell, but it doesn't lather very well, and you need to use about two pumps for it to be enough to wash your hands. I have a ton made, so will keep using it, but if I were to do it again, I would lower the amount of glycerin, I think. Or try a different recipe altogether. But hubby still likes it, and it does the job. Just a bit awkwardly!