Homemade Hand Soap

Hand soap is one of those necessary evils that always seems to cost a pretty penny for something that you wash down the drain. Even worse, many popular brands contain chemicals that are unsafe for our families and the environment. Fortunately, there is a CHEAP and EASY solution! Homemade hand soap is a great first step to a cleaner household.

Here's what you will need:

1 bar of earth friendly soap (look for a bar with saponified natural/organic oils as the only ingredients, like those from Light Stone or Bubble & Bee)
Water
An empty jug or other container to store your soap!

That's really it. Cool, right?! Big thanks to my friend Heather for sending me this particular bar of soap - it made a Heavenly batch of hand soap!

Start by shredding the soap. You can choose to use a box grater ...

... or you can be lazy and use the food processor like I did! You end up with these cute, curly little shreds of soap:

Next, add 10-15 cups of warm water to a large pot, and stir in your soap curls. Warm them over medium heat for 5-10 minutes, stirring regularly, until the soap flakes are completely dissolved.

Once the soap flakes are completely dissolved, remove the pot from the heat and allow the soap mixture to cool on the counter for a few hours. Feel free to wander around aimlessly.

Once the solution has cooled, pour it into your jug using a funnel. The soap will thicken as it sits, so if it is a little runny, don't worry.

When it is time to refill your hand pumps just give your jug a good shake, and fill away!