Today I finally did something I've been wanting to do for a while -- make my own body wash. I've been reading online on different blogs about how to make your own liquid laundry detergent, liquid hand soap and body wash. I figure if I can save a few bucks with this stuff I have more money to spend on other things I'd rather spend money on! The thing that takes the longest is grating the soap for the recipes!
I've tried the laundry detergent recipe and I need to tweak it a little to compensate for our hard water. And I'd like to try a few different soap options too. Last time I used Fels Naptha as the base soap and will probably use lye soap next time and probably modify the recipe a bit. I did like the smell of the Fels Naptha soap, but have heard and read good things about lye soap, so I'll try that next. Due to our hard water, liquid soaps work better than dry, but they do take a little longer to make!
Today I made 'homemade' body wash. I wanted to make a small recipe to start with in case I didn't like it or the recipe didn't work well. So, I used 1 bar of Dove Sensitive Skin Unscented Beauty Bar soap (grated), 2 cups water and 1 tsp. of glycerine.
The glycerin amount was less that the recipe called for (it said TBSP, not tsp). I've read recipes that didn't call for glycerine, so we'll see when I try it out tomorrow if I like it or not! The glycerine was the most expensive thing of all the ingredients but you're not using a lot, so it makes sense if the recipe calls for it. I let the soap solution sit for about 12 hours to thicken, and I know if I left it longer it would probably get thicker, but I liked the consistency I had now.
I also made some homemade baby wipes solution too, using Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap Pure Castile Almond liquid soap, water and tea tree oil. Not keen on the tea tree oil smell, but it's a disinfectant and will keep the solution fresh longer. The Dr. Bronner's soap part smells yummy and feels soft though -- can't want to start using it!
Maybe I'll make some 'manly' body wash for Chris next... :)
Yeah - the body wash worked wonderfully!
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