A couple of years ago, I wrote a post about how we made liquid hand soap. We were using our homemade castille soap at the time and even with the gylcerin added, it wasn’t particularly thick. So, I was a little surprised when I had someone comment about how thick and unusable the soap was when they used a traditional bar of soap like Ivory.
Since then, it has plagued me as to how I could make that recipe work for regular soap, especially considering my husband goes on a lot of business trips and comes home with all these little bars of soap that never get used (mainly because I don’t like the mess bar soap creates on a counter).
Last week, necessity became the mother of invention. We were out of soap refill, I was tired of paying for it (we go through a lot of soap!), and I had some extra time to figure out how to make the 4 bars of hotel soap I had on hand into liquid hand soap.
I started by grating all the soap. They were all different kinds from different hotels. The 4 bars together equaled 2 cups of soap shreds.
I put those shreds in a large pot on the stove and began adding water and more water and more water. Several times I had to let the soap cool so I could test the consistency and then yes, add more water! Finally, at 20 cups of water, I had a usable soap!
So, here’s the recipe at its lowest ratio:
Bar Soap to Liquid Hand Soap
1 cup of shredded bar soap (hotel or not)
10 cups water
Melt soap in water in a large pot on the stove. Let cool slightly and poor into containers. Soap will thicken as it cools.
I can’t wait to see what you’ve been up to this week!
I also want to take a moment to tell you that all this month on the Welcome Home Link Up I’ll be featuring my friend Renee’s Norwex business! That’s right! You told me about Norwex on my one-day cleaning post, Renee emailed without even knowing I had written that post, and I am now the proud owner of Norwex products! I’ll be telling you more about this adventure next week! But, in the meantime, look through her site, and if you would like to order anything, please contact her at DrPoschen at cox dot net so I get hostess credit (so I can get more of these great products!)
{and check out the Spring Sale from A Slob Comes Clean – coupon code: SPRING gets you her ebook on taking back your house for only $3!)
Rebecca says
LOVE IT! I know where one of those came from -blessed to have spent a weekend with you!!!
Amy says
Hee hee – I had thrown out all our old ones when we moved, so I was glad to have that little Fairfield soap. 😉
Amy says
Hee hee – I had thrown out all our old bars when we moved, so I was glad to have that little Fairfield soap. 😉 (hoping to have another time of fellowship like that again!)
Jamerrill @ Holy Spirit-led Homeschooling says
Whoa, homemade liquid soap?! It’s amazing the things that excite me. 🙂
Stephanie says
To stretch hand soap in our house, we use the foaming soap dispensers and refill with regular soap refill (only a little bit) and water and stir with a knife. We have saved a ton of money on hand soap this way.
Stephanie says
Good idea. I always save hotel soaps and donate them to the local food pantry. I may have to try this sometime. Thanks for the inspiration!
Pat Aho says
I reuse foaming hand soap containers. I refill them with hotel bodywash or shampoo and water. I get great scented hand soap free. You can use most kinds of liquid soap to do this. The amount of water depends on the type of soap. You just have to play with it a little. I like that there is no cooking involved.
Emily Dykstra says
Amy, the links don’t work for the Norwex website 🙂
Renee Poschen says
The link should be reneeposchen.norwex.biz and my e-mail is drposchen@cox.net. Please e-mail me if you have any norwex questions. Amy will get hostess credit for any orders or show bookings that are obtained this week. Please mention that you saw it on this blog. Thanks!
Priscilla says
Can this be used in a foamy soap dispenser? Or would I need to add more water?
here is 1 that it quite similar but it has glycerin in it (I haven’t made it yet)
http://www.thefarmersnest.com/2011/11/liquid-hand-soap-diy.html
Amy says
You would need more water in the dispenser itself I would assume. Do not add glycerin! That makes it thicker and there is already glycerin in these soaps.
alicia says
Amy! Thank you for the brilliant idea. I just tried (I say “tried” because it’s still hot & I don’t know how thick it will end up?) it with some peppermint organic bar soap. Never realized that I could make handsoap with “ingredients” I can feel good about…kinda like food, eh? While cooking this batch, I had a mini-brilliant idea of my own. Have you thought about making baby bath wash like this? If I could find a Burt’s Bees Baby barsoap, I could make babywash for WAY cheaper than the $7-$8 I’m now paying for a bottle!! It does last a long time, but I use it on all 4 of our kids. So, I’m going to hop onto Amazon & see what I can find! Maybe some other “baby worthy” barsoap brand someone else knows about. Seriously, that would be at least $ro worth of baby wash from 1 bar of soap! Will let you know how it goes: THANK YOU again for the idea!
Amy says
Oh wow! What a great idea!!!
Chara says
Thank you so much for hosting! I hope you enjoy my pair of posts- hard boiled eggs and natural real food Easter egg dyes… 🙂
Melinda says
I agree with the other poster about reusing the foaming soap dispensers. I usually put about 1/3 soap and 2/3 water (depends on how thick the liquid soap is – more soap when I use bubble bath for handsoap. Ha!) in those so it stretches it even more. And now I know what to do with all those little bars of soap my in-laws bring after their trips. I just hate using them since they’re already so small, but this is a great idea.
Laura says
Amy~
Was excited to read about making hand soap! What a brilliant idea!
I have made laundry soap (I prefer the dry kind) for a long time but have struggled with using a food processor (actually it wasn’t a struggle… getting a processor that didn’t die 1/2 way through the job was though). I noticed that you had used your Bosch mixer/food processor. Did it do a good job with shredding the soap and have you seen any adverse effects on your food processor? I am thinking about buying a bosch… but hesitated getting the food processor part of it.
Amy says
My main purposes for the food processor part of the Bosch is for grating cheese and grating soap. I have never had any trouble with it and I have several friends who use it for this purpose as well w/o issue. 🙂
kelli- AdventurezInChildRearing says
Great idea Amy! You so smart 😉 I think I’ll be trying this – this weekend!
Lorraine says
Thank you so much for this! I was searching around for how to make “homemade” bars of soap using all those hotel soaps, but I never realized I could make liquid soap- which I way prefer. And one cup of soap to ten cups of water!?! Talk about a giant savings 😀
Jolene (Homespun Heritage) says
My secret for hand soap? The foamy dispensers! I buy Dawn Dishsoap in bulk and we add a squirt to the bottom of the dispenser, fill with water and its to go! The foamy dispensers save us a ton of soap and since nothing cuts grease on little hands better than Dawn its been the perfect solution for our family!
Kaleena says
I made the hand soap- 2 cups of shredded soap to 20 cups of water ( my kids each wanted their own bar to shred, lol) and it’s not thickening. I tried it put it back in the pot after sitting a day to add more grated soap and still seems really thin- any advice? Am I doing something wrong, lol? THANK YOU!!!
Amy says
My trouble was the opposite, so I’m not sure. You might try adding some glycerin to it to help it thicken.