Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Yet Another DIY Recipe

  Hi all!
I'm at home today.... enjoying the quiet joys of cleaning and organizing and thinking. We've been extremely busy at the deli this week  and so these quiet days at home every couple weeks give me a chance to relax, recharge and enjoy thinking. I like to think..... am I weird?? :)

So I've been all domestic this morning and decided to show you how to make:

HOMEMADE FOAMING HAND SOAP

I don't know about y'all, but we go though a lot of hand soap, and we don't even play in sandboxes and mud puddles either :). I don't particularly care for the cheap antibacterial soap you can buy and I also don't care to spend $2-$3 dollars on a bottle of good smelling stuff that will last about a week so I make my own :) Once again, I found this  here and promptly tried it and loved it. That website is amazing for all kinds of DIY cleaners and laundry soaps, etc. 
Your first stop will be a grocery store/Walmart/whatever. You will need to buy a bottle of dishwashing detergent. I got mine at WalMart and the options are endless:


I use mostly Dawn, simply because they have good scents and the soap isn't as strong as Palmolive and as weak as Sun or whatever else. This is going on hands, not dishes, remember, so don't get anything too powerful :).
On a whim, I picked up Great Values knock-off of Dawn's Olay with Hand Renewal and I like it. I paid $1.97 for the bottle and have no complaints.

You will also need an empty hand-soap bottle. NOTE: you MUST buy a foaming soap with the special pump in order to have your soap turn out foaming. I bought a Dial hand-soap awhile back, used it, and am now using the bottle to make my own.


Pour about an inch of dishwashing soap directly into the empty bottle. 

 Fill the rest of the bottle up with water from the tap, and then shake well. It will result in looking like this:


If you like a stronger soap, use more dishwashing soap; if you like a more mild kind, use less. I've seen suggestions for adding food coloring to give it a boost of color but I never do that. I'm scared it will stain my hands plus I just find it unnecessary.

I love making soap this way.... it literally takes seconds to make, smells really nice, and is a whole lot cheaper than buying new bottles every time you run out. After I made this bottle, I estimate that I can make at least ten more batches after this. Probably closer to 15 but if I can only make 10, that will be a cost of $.20 a bottle. Not bad, compared to $2.00 for just one bottle that would last us a week.

I was telling my grandma about this a couple months ago and she told me she's been doing this for years. Ha! And I thought it was a new pinterest thing :). Goes to show Grandmas are more valuable than Pinterest, because what is now in vogue to do has been done for years and years by the older generation.

Catch ya next time,
Vicki