DIY Hand Soap

Making this DIY hand soap is not only cheap and easy, but it’s better for you (and the planet)! First and foremost, you are you getting rid of unnecessary exposure to chemicals. But also imagine all of the plastic you are keeping out of the landfill!

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DIY Hand Soap Recipe

This recipe could not be any simpler, all you need are the following items:

Ingredients

Foaming hand soap dispenser
These are the amber glass ones that I have, but any foaming dispenser will do. You can even reuse one from a store-bought foaming hand soap.

Distilled Water
Distilled water is free from contaminants that may be present in tap water.

Liquid castile soap
You can use scented or unscented. I usually use this lavender-scented one from Dr. Bronner’s. Alternatively, you can use an unscented one and customize the scent with your own essential oils.

Essential oils (optional)

Directions

Simply fill your dispenser approximately 1/4 full with your liquid castile soap and then top off with distilled water. If using unscented castile soap, you can add essential oils to customize your soap’s scent. Add the pump back onto the top and swirl around to mix it up. That’s it!

I made the label using this super-affordable embossing label maker (which first made an appearance on the blog for this DIY lavender pillow spray).

Cost Savings

Now let’s look at how much we save by using this hand soap recipe. For an 8 ounce soap dispenser, we’ll use 2 ounces of castile soap (about 90 cents if you buy your castile soap in bulk), plus 6 ounces of distilled water (about 4 cents).

If we are comparing a similar quality hand soap (Mrs. Meyer’s foaming hand soap is around $4 if it’s on sale), this is a cost savings of a little over $3 each time you mix up your soap! It’s a no-brainer when you think about the fact that you can use this hand soap recipe to make it yourself for less than ¼ the price in less than a minute. If you decide to buy a foaming hand soap dispenser, it will basically pay for itself after just a few months.

More Information About Triclosan

You may not think too much about hand soap when you pick one off the shelf at the grocery store, but do you know what’s actually in there? For the longest time, most antibacterial soaps contained triclosan until 2017 when the FDA banned its use in certain products due to concerns about potential negative effects. It had been used in countless products including hand soap, toothpaste, body wash, deodorant. Triclosan is even found in items like clothing, toys and furniture to prevent bacterial growth. Additionally, triclosan is used as an agricultural pesticide – how about brushing that on your teeth!

Links to FDA Articles about Triclosan:

https://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm378393.htm

https://www.fda.gov/forconsumers/consumerupdates/ucm205999.htm