Laundry Soap, Fabric Softener, Tub and Shower cleaner.
I was confident. Overconfident.
My mistake.
Last week, I decided that since my current bottle of body wash was only 3 showers away from oblivion, I should try and make some. WOW. I was an idiot.
I did my usual 'thing'. Read blogs until I was seeing spots (yeah, I know what you are thinking - I have WAY to much time on my hands). Since my current 'job' is a) healing my back b) getting better and c) physio - I'm pretty much a bum. Nevertheless - I kept reading and reading and finally found what I thought would be a perfect recipe. Everything I needed I already had on hand and according to the particular website I obtained most of my information from, this would be PERFECT!
I was excited!
I dived into the recipe. Everything ran smoothly. It smelled wonderful!! I let the mixture cool overnight.
In the morning, eager to try out my new soap, I took the lid of the bucket and low and behold....
I had snot.
Kinda gross. ok. REALLY gross. I mixed it with the immersion blender hoping against hope that the snotty texture would go away.
Yeah - no. It didn't.
Ok (i thought to myself). There are concessions to be made here. This IS a homemade product. This says it's supposed to work (the warning being that it may be a touch slimy and won't foam much). Ok. I'll try it.
Shower #1. The snot wouldn't stay on the bath poof. I made do. I was clean. I smelled good.
Shower #2. Nope, not getting used to this. Still clean, still nice smelling. I'll live with it.
Shower #3. NO FRIGGIN WAY AM I DOING THIS AGAIN!!!! I simply can't stand this snotty, slimy, no foaming shower body wash stuff. SCREW IT.
I went back to the internet. I think the actual search I put in good was "body wash that isn't snotty".
I read some more. I found what the author described as the perfect body wash. TA DA!! I could hear angels singing....ok maybe no angels, but I was excited however skeptical after my first disaster.
During my next trip to the store, I picked up some beautiful Dove Shea Butter soap. I've secretly always been a dove girl but it's so expensive for the body wash so I would usually pick up whatever was decent, smelled nice and was on sale. My last bottle was a Nivea soap. ( LOVE Nivea products!)
Ok. Round 2.
Did the 'microwave the soap instead of grating it on a cheese grater' method. Nope - don't like that - the soap came out as a hot blob of goo and immediately went hard before I got it out of the measuring cup and into the water. In the 3 minutes it took to microwave the 3 bars of soap, I could have had them grated and in the hot water already boiling.
Hot water - check. Soap in hot water - check. Standing by hot stove to stir the soap (ughh) - check.
I'm sure it took 10 minutes to melt the soap but I'm convinced it was only because the soap was a big lump after coming out of the microwave.
After everything was melted, I poured the soap through a strainer to make sure I hadn't missed any lumps of soap (I hadn't). I sent a text to my hubby saying there was soap on the counter and not to go trying to taste it. (ok, so my hubby has this annoying habit of getting his fingers into anything I'm baking/cooking/making whatever - to taste it.....figured it looked like icing so he might just try it)
On second thought - next time I'm not letting him know >>evil grin<<
I let it cool overnight. Not expecting much in the morning, I took a look at the white mess in the bowl and TADA!! It was awesome!! A quick stir with the immersion blender and the addition of about 1/2 a cup of water (I thought it was a little thick) and it was SILKY, SMOOTH, FRAGRANT, BEAUTIFUL BODY WASH!!
I poured it into my empty Nivea bottle and used it that day. It was great. It felt awesome against my skin, lathered like a 'normal' body wash and left my skin clean and soft. AMAZING! Another great 'plus' to this is that it doubles as a hand soap as well.
I was SOLD!
My son tried it tonight....he usually uses the bar of Irish Spring my husband has in the shower - and he always complains that it dries out his skin. Well, rave reviews from him tonight! He loved it.
When I made this up, I used the 500ml jars I had. The thought to that being that when it was used as a hand soap, all I needed to do was take off the jar top and put on the jar top from the hand soap containers I already had. 2 birds with one stone! One batch, two uses...like this...
The cost difference is pretty good. The store bought stuff I was using was Nivea Water Lily. I picked it up for $4.49. The bottle is 16.9oz. The homemade stuff makes 3 times as much as the store bought.
Nivea - $4.49/16.9oz - $0.26/oz
Homemade - $3.75/3 bars Dove Shea Butter Soap, 50.7oz - $0.07/oz.
SAVINGS OF $0.19/oz! I find that I use slightly less of the homemade stuff because it's pretty thick and sudsy.
Here is how I did it and what it cost.
Body Wash and Hand Soap
Ingredients
·
3 3 bars of soap
·
6 cups of water
Directions
1.
Put water into a pan on the stove and
bring to a boil, then turn down to medium heat.
2.
Grate the soap, add the grated soap
to pot of water.
3.
Continue stirring occasionally over
medium heat until all the soap is dissolved.
4.
When completely dissolved…transfer to
a glass jar or bowl and allow to cool, then pour into a plastic bottle for
shower use!
5.
It will thicken as it cools and will
continue to thicken for about 24 hours.
6.
If it gets TOO thick…simply add some
water until it’s the desired consistency.
Yield
·
1.5 litres (50.7oz)
Cost
·
Dove bars ($1.25 each) x 3 = $3.75
Edited to add:
Yesterday I tried this recipe with Oil of Olay Shea Butter Soap, I added a 1/2 cup extra water to it and it also turned out very nice. The cost worked out to: $3.25/batch. It's nice but I like the Dove one better....but then again, I'm a Dove girl. :)
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