We go through a lot of hand soap. A lot. From the diaper changes to the “mom come wipe me”s, there is much hand washing in our house.
Ever the DIYer, I’ve been making foaming hand soap for years, and we still use it daily. The only downside of foaming hand soap is that you need a special foaming pump and these eventually wear out (though this one has been going strong for over a year at our house).
Liquid Hand Soap…
I got enough questions about if this would work as a liquid hand soap that I decided to create a recipe specifically for liquid hand soap. This uses the same idea as my homemade laundry detergent of grating a natural bar soap and melting in water to form a natural gel.
This is not only cost effective (a $3 to $4 bar of premium natural soap will make up to a gallon of soap), but simple and more natural than regular soap.
Is it Antibacterial?
As I mentioned before, I avoid antibacterial handsoaps and other products because of their potential to create resistant bacteria and microbiome changes. Plain soap and water have proven as effective as antibacterial soaps without the risk (source) and this natural version is a simple and cost effective natural soap.
What You’ll Need
- A natural bar soap of choice. Homemade bar soaps usually work well and my other favorites are Dr. Bronners, african black soap, and Kombucha soap (available here).
- Distilled or filtered water
- A dispenser: Reuse an old soap dispenser, use a glass one or metal one, or make one out of a mason jar by drilling a hole in the top and hot gluing on the top of a soap pump dispenser.
What You Need:
- 1 ounce of finely grated bar soap (about 1/4 of a bar of soap) I used this one
- 1 quart of water
- Optional: Essential Oils of your preference
What to Do:
- Place the bar soap and water into a small saucepan.
- Turn on medium heat and stir constantly until soap has dissolved into the water.
- Let cool completely and add the essential oils if using. Pour into the container you plan to use.
- It will take about 24 hours to completely “gel” but it will not be quite as thick as regular hand soap. You can add more grated bar soap to create a thicker soap but it will be more difficult to pump and will not get hands any more clean, so I stick with this.
- After 24 hours, shake well to make sure it has gelled completely and use as normal.
What type of hand soap do you use? Ever made your own?
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Josie, have you got a response. I haven’t started to make the liquid hand soap but just bought a dr bonners lavendar soap bar…im scared its not going to come out well based on wbat has happened to you.
I love every thing i saw here. I will try it
Help me!!! This is the second time I’ve tried to make this water + bar soap liquid soap recipe. My soap isn’t gelling at all. It’s just a liquid. So frustrating. Please tell me what I’m doing wrong.
did you ever solve this problem? my soap turned out the same.
I have collected many bars of soaps. I love soaps. Can I grate these and make liquid hand and body soap using the distiller water recipe. Will these give me the same effect as the original recipe.
My liquid soap turned out to be very slimy – we can hardly wash our hands as it runs away from the hand very quickly – especially with children. After you press the pump and take the soap into your palm, it stretches a lot and makes a lot of mess around the dispenser. What am I doing wrong?
This happened with the batch I made a few months ago. I also hated the tacky feeling it left on my hands (although maybe that was the glycerine?) All we had to do was add some oil to jar and wa-la, much better! I can’t give you an exact amount, just add a few “glugs” at a time until you think the consistency is right. We ended up using a mixture of olive and avocado oils because it was what we had on hand in the kitchen, but any stable veggie based oil should do. Only thing to note is that adding the oil might cause the soap to go bad a bit quicker so I wouldn’t make more than about a 4-6mo supply and store in a dark/cool area.
Do you have a good recipe for a hand/body lotion that doesn’t contain coconut oil? I have eczema on my hands only, and it seems that the coconut oil makes it flair up. Is there a chance I have an intolerance, or allery to coconut oil?
This recipe is great and the coconut oil is optional (as the recipe says, just use more shea butter where it calls for coconut oil): https://wellnessmama.com/23619/shea-butter-lotion-bar-stick/
I used to have eczema on my hands too. I gave up drinking cows milk and it went away.
Can you tell me how this soap is disinfecting and killing bacteria on my hands, couse I don’t see an ingredient which could do that?
You are not supposed to disinfect your hands, you will kill your normal flora which kills bad bacteria!
ALL soap will kill bacteria. Soap and water is still the best thing for washing hands. Antibacterial wipes and gels AND soaps will kill both good and bad bacteria. Our world is over-sanitized, which is partly why we have so much spread of disease. Our bodies don’t have enough good bacteria to fight back.
I agree 100% Jill. I am a nurse, and when I was in nursing school, we never had antibacterial gels or soaps. We killed germs (bad) with regular soap and water and LOTS of friction. It’s the friction that does the trick.
I remember seeing a TV program where they tested antibacterial soap and plain soap and there was NO DIFFERENCE to the level of bacteria left on your hands – surgeons have just ‘scrubbed up’ using plain soap for years before performing operations 😉
However, the test between soap and just plain water did make a difference as it appears the bacteria are just distributed over the hands rather than being washed off…
Um..the soap?
The soap is the ingredient that gets the germs off your hands
Can I use a mixture of 3 tablespoons castor oil + 1 tablespoon olive oil + 1 tablespoon coconut oil? Is it going to be the same effect as with jojoba oil?
Ok, so boil first let cool, add soap and heat again until soap dissolves? Sorry, mommy brain here 🙂
You can just heat with the grated soap until it dissolves
I made this yesterday but just used water from tap. Should I have boiled it first? Do I need to throw out what I made? I used cucumber and calendula soap from the soap works and it is a nice consistency! Made the powdered laundry detergent too, and it is even effective on cloth diapers. Love it!!!
The reason to boil the water is just to kill anything in the water so that it does not spoil. It will work fine, it just may not last as long as it otherwise would.