Making Hand Soap

We were finally able to collect all of the ingredients needed to make a couple of batches of homemade hand soap this week and I am so glad that we did! It is super easy, cheap, fun and satisfying. Here's what we did:

We have been collecting bars of nice soap (Yardley's, for example) anytime they have been on a good sale at CVS and Walgreens for the past couple of months. I was able to finally find glycerin in the pharmacy area of Walmart - for $2.98 for a 6 oz. bottle. Here's what you can do to make some for yourself! (For our first batch, we used English Lavender from Yardley's and then made a smaller batch of an herbal soap for the sensitive hands in our family.)

Grate one bar of soap using a regular cheese grater:

Next, add the soap flakes (you should have about 1 and a 1/2 cups) to 15 cups of water in a large pot with 1.5 tbsp of glycerin.  At first, this is how it will look:

Stir regularly over medium heat until the flakes are completely dissolved.  Transfer to a large container and let sit overnight.  At first, we thought we did something wrong since it was kind of runny.  But, after sitting overnight, it thickened right up. 

We refilled our empty bottles around the house right away and it worked perfectly!  They smell so good and only cost .38 worth of glycerin and .48 for a bar of soap - for the whole thing!  85 CENTS to make 15+ cups of hand soap!!  We have already filled 2 bottles and have so much left over it will last for a very long time!

My next project is to make these to fill with our homemade soap:

Source:Canning Jar Soap Dispenser

If you try it out, let me know how it goes!