DIY liquid soap - no chemicals required!!

A year or so ago I bought a bulk lot of liquid castille soap that I've been using in our reusable hand soap dispensers, but a few months ago I ran out. I prefer liquid soap for hands as it is easier in the kitchen and bathroom and doesn't leave the same mess as home made olive oil soap bars do with regular use (all that lovely glycerine gloops out). However, with increases in postage (no local suppliers) it just wasn't practical to buy more online, so I went looking for another solution.

I stumbled across this post at The Frugal Berry - in a nutshell you use a bar of Castile soap (say Dr Bronners, but of course you can use home made soap), water, a bag and some time. Seemed far to easy, but nothing venture nothing gained, so I gave it a whirl.

It worked! In a week I went from this

to this

and it really was as easy as the instructions on the blog. I did use two cakes of soap, but mine were small. In fact this was soap that didn't work so well (with calendula flower threads) so this has been a great way to use it up. It made 1L of liquid soap, and probably cost less than $5.

Liquid soap problems solved!

Handmade heaven

When I cleared out my PO box today I found a welcome treat! My parcel of handmade soap from Kirsty at Gobblers Run. Kirsty makes the most gorgeous soaps (visit the website and look at the pics of the coffee soap, for example).

But with my dodgy skin I went for the low/no/natural fragrance options. In my lovely recycled paper goody bag (which even had my name on it!) there was

• Goats milk soap
• Goats milk soap with honey and oatmeal (smells good enough to eat!)
  
• Pure castille soap
• Shaving soap (olive oil base with french clay and shea butter)
  

Don't they look lovely?

More Soap

Yesterday I managed to find time to make another batch of soap. This time I used a blend of olive, sunflower, apricot kernel, almond and castor oil - and used red clover tea rather than straight water. It's scented with rosemary oil - and has some bits of rosemary through it.

It has a paler, creamier colour than the last batch - and smells quite nice already. I used old milk cartons as moulds, which was very effective - and lends itself to my rustic shapes!!

Soap update

After about 26 hours the soap seemed ready to cut...here it is in "bars". It won't win any glamour awards that's for sure... :*)

Now it just needs to cure for a few months. One thing I have learnt from this exercise is to make sure I oil any plastic trays I use in future! I think the milk carton mould works the best so might just go with that.

It now smells more "soapy" than "olive oily" which is good - and the oatmeal / rolled oats make it look a bit like a slice rather than soap.

My first soap

Today I conquered my fear of caustic and made my first batch of soap. I used an 80% olive oil / 20% coconut oil mix, with a bit of oatmeal, plus lavender and bergamot oils.

It smells very olive oil-ish (I used local oil) so we'll see how it works out, and I'll post updates.

I used an old plastic fruit tray for the mould, and the bit of excess went into an old milk carton - which I "should" be able to just slice in a day or so.