1 Mother 2 Another

If you’re like us, you go through
about a gallon of hand soap a month. And now that cold-and-flu
season is upon us, it’s just going to get worse. We always
use liquid soap – I can’t remember the last time we
used bar soap in this family, since it’s so messy and is
harder for little hands to hold – but I’m not a big fan
of most liquid soaps; the artificial fragrances range from annoying
to carcinogenic, and most hand soaps now add an anti-bacterial
ingredient known as triclosan, which is a big no-no in this
household. (Side bar – triclosan is being reviewed by the FDA
over concerns that it is both harmful to humans and is actually
producing antibiotic-resistant bacteria. And it has been proven to
be no more effective than regular soap. Plus, all the triclosan
that gets washed into our water systems is literally killing entire
aqua eco-systems. )


But I digress.

The point is, we’ve started making
so much of our own household cleaners that I began to wonder if we
could make our own liquid soap. Laundry detergent is store-bought
– didn’t love the homemade stuff – and making our
own dish soap from castile soap is no cheaper than buying
eco-friendly dish soap. But what about liquid soap?


A few months ago I found a recipe for easy liquid hand soap on the
internet, and I have to tell you, this stuff is excellent.


For the detailed “recipe”, click href="http://healthychild.org/blog/comments/easy_liquid_soap_recipe/"
target="_blank">here. But let me tell you, there are
just three ingredients – water, vegetable glycerin (available
at any Hobby Lobby or Michaels or a baking store), and soap flakes.
Now, you can grate your own bar soap for the flakes, but I
purchased them from Amazon. They were surprisingly hard to track
down – couldn’t find them at any local stores –
but I paid around nine bucks for the bag, and estimate it will make
at least three batches of the recipe. And each batch of the recipe
makes a HALF GALLON of hand soap.


Now, if you want to make the soap yourself, make sure you read the
full recipe. But here it is in a nutshell: combine the three
ingredients. Heat on a stove so the flakes melt. Let cool
overnight. Add in essential oils for fragrance, if desired, and mix
to blend it. Then stick it in a rinsed-out laundry detergent
container, or an old large jar, or whatever, and pour into soap
dispensers as needed.


Yeah. It really is that easy.


The girls were almost disappointed at how easy it was to make
– they’d hoped for a bit more elbow grease or fancy
instructions. But there it is – easy, and cheap. Do the math:
if a half-gallon costs three bucks to make, then you’re
refilling your kid’s soap dispenser for about, what, thirty
cents?


Is this a hard decision to make?