3.21.2013

Homemade Dish Soap

Last week I decided to try making dish soap after thinking about all the chemicals that are lurking in the regular stuff. I know we can't get crazy about all this stuff, but, honestly, making stuff is really fun to me! Even if I don't make it again, I enjoy trying. I had searched for several recipes and settled on the following.

I began with Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap as my base. This stuff is, indeed, magical! I've used the bar and liquid form of this soap for a while now. If you have some time on your hands, you should look at all the uses for this soap. Some of them are crazy! But, you know me, I've tried most of them!! :) (Maybe one day I'll do a post about my experience. One is when I decided to use it as toothpaste on a trip to AL to see my in laws. Oh boy! Needless to say, I felt like I was washing my mouth with soap...oh wait, I was! I had to resort to using Bear's Crest toothpaste.) Moving on....


I cut up the bar and placed it in my little food processor. Man, there is a first time for everything, huh?! I never imagined that I would be grinding up soap in the kitchen! 


It looked like this after the processor did it's work. (similar to cottage cheese, huh?) There is something that feels unnatural or disturbing about having non-food items in bowls/blenders/mixers in the kitchen, but at the same time, if I'm going on the premise that I want to be comfortable with what I put on my body as well as in it, I should be able to eat it! Not that I'm planning on eating any soap anytime soon, but you get my drift. :)


I put 8 cups of water in the pot and began to heat it until just before boiling. Then I added the soap pieces. I stirred until the soap completely dissolved. Then I added my sub for vegetable glycerin. I was so glad I could sub something I had on hand. Coconut oil! That stuff is also magical! Again, if you find yourself with spare time (who has that?) you can read about a bunch of uses for coconut oil.
After I stirred in the coconut oil, I was done for 24 hours. I just left it covered on the stove til the next day. 


The next day I poured it into my mixer and mixed it up for a bit. Since I used coconut oil, it was kind of solid. Coconut oil liquefies at about 76 degrees. After things got stirred up, it was liquid. Also, I added another cup of water to dilute it a bit. Needless to say, my kitchen smelled amazing after all this cooking and mixing of soap!


The end result was these pretty bottles of liquid dish soap! I kept the big one and gifted the little one for a friend to try. (I'm loving reusing glass jars! Aren't they cute? If you have any laying around collecting dust, I will come and pick them up!)

I found this recipe from Pistachio Project.

The verdict after using it for about two weeks:

  • I really like it because it smells amazing, keeps my hands moist while washing dishes and doesn't dry them out (dishpan hands, anyone?) afterwards.
  • It doesn't exactly pump out of the sink dispenser like Dawn. Bear isn't a fan of that. He also thinks it doesn't cut the grease quite as well as Dawn. My questions is: what's a little more elbow grease to feel better about what you are putting on eating surfaces? It burns calories, right? 
  • I am going to get lids with pumps for mason jars soon! Then I will begin using it for hand/dish soap in the kitchen. Bear will probably get the Dawn and put it back in the sink dispenser and that is a-okay! 
Like I said earlier, I am not trying to go nuts over here with making every last thing we use, but it sure is a fun experiment! One day Bear said, "You can't make everything!" I said, "I can try!" HA! 

One of the beautiful things about this soap is that it cost me 3.99 to make it! I already had the coconut oil on hand, but if you figured out what a tablespoon cost, it would be a few cents. That right there is motivation for me to keep putting soap in the food processor! :)

Have you made anything fun lately? Let me know!

Happy Thursday!

1 comment:

Linz said...

sooo cool! i love it! i want some!