Experiments in Soap Making: Homemade Liquid Hand Soap Plus an Unexpected Fringe Benefit

I am on a quest to make everything I possibly can - food, cleaning products, beauty products...I've sewn many of my own clothes for years.  I LOVE to learn, and when I get excited about a new topic, I tend to ravenously devour all the information about it that I can find.  This sustainability project has been no exception.  I've been interested in and working toward modifying the way we eat for a long time...years.  But five months ago, I couldn't have cared less about what I used to clean my sink or moisturize my face.  I mean, I cared, but in the sense of what could I buy at the store that would do the best job?  I wasn't interested in natural or homemade.  They used science to figure all that out, right?  All I had to do was choose the best product.

The more I read, though, the more I like knowing exactly what is in the products I'm using, and the more I stop drinking the marketing kool-aid, so-to-speak.

So.  When I ran out of hand soap in my bathroom, I made my own.  I usually dig around on the internet a bit and read what other people have done, glean from those various sources and then form my own plan.  I was able to make the soap from everything I already had on hand - water, liquid castile soap, and essential oils.  I had purchased some Dr. Bronner's liquid castile soap already to make homemade cleaning products as we ran out.  I had also purchased some essential oils for the same reason.  

I simply rinsed then filled my empty soap dispenser 3/4 of the way full of water, then filled it the rest of the way with liquid castile and several drops of the essential oils I had on hand - tea tree oil, peppermint, and lavender.

It's not a perfect system yet, the soap has the consistency of water, and tends to leak out of the pump whenever I touch it.  My intention is to buy a foaming soap dispenser from Specialty Bottle.  The price is $1.16 (plus shipping), but they are out of stock for the time being.

The reason I am not purchasing a foaming soap dispenser full of soap at the store and using it up is because of the unexpected fringe benefit I discovered when I began using my soap.  I am prone to dry skin.  I always have dry hands, but every winter they crack and bleed and my knuckles get crusty with dry skin (ew, I know)...no matter how much lotion I put on.  When I started using my soap, within a WEEK my hands had completely healed.  No more cracking and bleeding.  No more knuckle crust.  My hands still feel slightly dry (which is now easily remedied by lotion, or my homemade moisturizer which I will post about soon), but my skin looks healthy and smooth.  A fluke?  A coincidence?  No.  I recently went out of town for several days, and it wasn't long before my hands were painfully cracked and bleeding again.  Now that I've been home for a week, once again, healed and smooth!

A side note:  I am sensitive about some things, and you can make your own decision about this, but in the future, I will probably purchase a brand of liquid castile other than Dr. Bronners.  The product is great, and widely recommended; the philosophy of the founder...questionable.  You can read the bottle for yourself and decide what your level of comfort is...but like I said, I'm sensitive, so...  I'm really interested in trying to make my own liquid castile soap someday!  But that is another blog post for another day.

-Kendra

This post shared at Frugally Sustainable's Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways #74