Yesterday I felt like I needed to be wearing a white lab coat while concocting crazy stuff in my kitchen. In all actuality the final product to what I originally planned on making whipped up another end result. No pun intended... ok, it was intended. I initially was going to work on creating some handmade liquid hand soap which I found on Pinterest.
I thought to myself:
Just as much as we need liquid hand soap in this house (I never buy it because it's so expensive), we need body wash badly for the boys, all three of them including my hubs.
I wonder if I would be able to swap out soaps and make something comparable to a body wash instead of just a hand soap.
My boys love the smell of Irish Spring, but hate the tackiness it leaves on your skin after you use it.
Would I be able to create a body wash with that soap and be able to ditch the tackiness in the process?
What I bought at Wal-Mart:
2 - 2 Qt Rubbermaid Containers - $1.98 each
1 - 6 oz bottle of Glycerin (found by skin protectants) - $3.88
1 pack of 2 bars of Irish Spring - $.94
I already had on hand:
A grater and large bowl
A blender/mixer
A pickle jar to hold extra shavings
A "tablespoon" measuring spoon
A "cup" dry measuring cup
A "cup" liquid measuring cup
A big pot to heat everything up with
(Disclaimer: I always buy a lot of stuff at Wal-Mart because I find it cheaper and easily accessible.
I'm sure you can find these supplies at whatever store you prefer.)
The first thing I did was grate the soap (I almost typed cheese.. silly me.) With it being deodorant soap it was soft and easy to grate. The recipe I used called for 2 cups of soap. 2 bars of Irish Spring shredded made 3 cups so I stored the extra cup in the pickle jar.
I then put 10 cups of water into my big 'ol pot and 2 tablespoons of glycerin plus the 2 (full, not packed) cups of soap. I turned the heat up and slowly brought it to a boil.
After the concoction came to a boil I didn't let it cook for long, just long enough to make sure everything melted. With the bars being deodorant they took a few minutes to melt down. When it was cooled down a bit I carefully poured the liquid into both of the containers. I could have poured into just one, but I didn't know whether it would expand or not during the cooling process.
After I poured out the liquid into the containers I was left with this crappy residue in the pot that I actually had to take my own dish soap and clean out. That distressed me because I didn't like the fact that I would have to clean soap with soap.
It got me thinking, "Uh oh... is this going to work?"
I put the open containers in the fridge to speed the cooling process up... I would say they were in there about 4 hours. When I came to get them out I noticed they didn't expand at all, they just gelled up after cooling completely. It was weird... like one big cold glop of gel.
Again I thought, "Dang... I don't think this is going to work."
So then my husband comes home from work and is like... "What are you doing?" I tell him I'm playing chemist today and he should check out my cool soap I'm making. He proceeds to shake the ever living CRAP out of one of the bottles after he scowls at the gross gel like substance it turned into.
*enter extremely bright light bulb above my head*
I whipped out my blender...
(again, no pun intended - Oh whatever, you should know me better by now...)
...and realized that I'm missing a gasket at the bottom of the glass top so I can't blend the soap to make it mix better. So I grabbed my mixer and plopped a container of the soap stuff in a bowl and beat it on a low/med speed.
Seriously? Are you kidding me? Whipped body wash??
SCORE!!!
I used just one container - so half of what I created - and filled up our empty body soap dispenser from previous body soap I bought at Walmart (which was almost $4!). Then I had a TON left over. The whipping expanded it like crazy so I put a bunch of it back into one of the containers.
Ha, look at my wrinkled old looking hands. That's too much hot water use on your hands ladies...
So this is what it looks like when you squirt it out of a dispenser. It's very foamy and soft. I tossed my 7 year old in a bath and used him as the guinea pig. I had to squirt about 3 pumps into a bath puff to get it to lather up well, but it definitely did the trick.
So let's do some math...
After looking at the cost of supplies up top, just for the soap and the Glycerin alone, you're looking at maybe 6-8 bottles of whipped body soap for $1.60?
I think it actually might be less than that.
Goodness... I'll bite at that anytime.
TIP TIME
1.
Unfortunately the tackiness the boys hate still slightly lingers around after a bath/shower. I'm sure that if you decide to use a moisturizing bar (even a men's bar like Dial for Men) it wouldn't leave this film. Good 'ol Irish Spring for ya...
Unfortunately the tackiness the boys hate still slightly lingers around after a bath/shower. I'm sure that if you decide to use a moisturizing bar (even a men's bar like Dial for Men) it wouldn't leave this film. Good 'ol Irish Spring for ya...
2.
After sitting all last night until today the whippedness of the soap is still whippy and holding well. It hasn't settled at all, which makes me uber happy.
3.
At first I didn't think I'd need the 2 containers, but it's a good idea to have them on hand just in case your batch ends up large.
Alrighty folks! That's my post for the day!
If you choose to make some of this please let me know how it goes!!
Make sure to pin one of my pictures from this post please!!
Next week I'll be making some more handmade cleaners so stay tuned!!!!
Greetings!
ReplyDeleteI am trying your soap recipe, yes with the Irish Spring....it is what my husband likes. I will let you know how it comes out. Thanks for the recipe!!
Hello Susan,
ReplyDeleteI am back:) I made your recipe and so far so good, although I am waiting for the results from the first shower. I did a few things just a little different that may have helped with the mess in the pot you talked about. First, instead of adding the soap to the water and brining it to a boil, I brought the water to a boil first, and then added the soap. I also used a burner diffuser between the burner and the cooking pot on the stove. (I had very little, and I mean hardly ANY residue left in the pot when I was done, and it cleaned up in just a few minutes with water.) I liked your idea about putting it in the fridge, so I did that for a bit and then left it on the counter overnight. It was a solid gel glop in the morning. I took my mixer to that and it worked beautifully. I agree Irish Spring has some "tackiness" about it, I think most deodorant soaps do. I will see how this works out and maybe use a different soap next time, but so far I am calling this a success! Thanks again!!
Well, the results are in!!!! According to my husband, he likes the texture of it, as it does not just run out of the bottle like the Dollar Store cheap body washes tend to do. It doesn't seem to lather as much,but he is ok with that-it still washes. It does seem to be more drying, however he will just use lotion (he does anyway, we live in Colorado.) I will try to tweak the next batch with lotion or coconut oil or maybe just use a different soap. He says this was a success!! Yay!
ReplyDeleteWooot! Thanks for all the feedback! Yeah, that was one of my husbands gripes too, that it didn't lather enough... and to me Irish Spring leaves that weird tacky film type feeling on your skin anyways. I haven't been back to revisit the recipe to tweak it more so let me know how that goes!
DeleteOK, so my DH is still working our way through ALL the bottles of homemade Irish Spring body wash - to be exact he is on bottle number 2. I think he uses more because it doesn't lather as much. So, after much reading and hemming and hawing (just kidding), I decided to take all the other bottles of wash, empty them into a bowl and whip some coconut oil into them. This way it won't be so drying on his skin and maybe less tacky, like you were talking about. I am hoping for good results. I will let you know how it works. (I think I added about 3/4 cup of coconut oil. It is 95 degrees here today so my coconut oil is liquid .! LOL)
ReplyDeleteOk, first shower done and he said it is much better with the coconut oil. Again, SUCESS!
DeleteHey Linda!!! Wow, what a plethora of information, thank you SO MUCH for sharing your trials and tribulations with perfecting this recipe! This post tends to be quite popular in the Google search for "Homemade Mens Body Wash" so hopefully all the hard work you've done to tweak it will help another reader too. :)
DeleteHi there! I'm not sure if it's the soap I'm using, but mine just won't get thick, or even snotty! I'm using the Rosa Dove Soap. Has anyone else tried making this with that type of Dove with any success at all?
ReplyDeleteBack again! After doing my own research, and after coming to my common sense, I realized that it's because Dove doesn't need much water, but no matter how much I put more soap in, in never got thick-- there was just too much water. So then I thought back to an oat body wash recipe that I found, and I added ground oats to the mixture. The end result is beautiful! I have now got over a gallon of Rosa Dove Oat soap, and I can't wait to use it!
ReplyDeleteI just made body wash out of Dove Winter Protection bar soap the other day. I followed someone's directions that called for 5 cups of water to two bars of Dove Winter bar soap, plus 1 TBSP of coconut oil. I decided to double the batch and used four bars of Dove Winter, 10 C of water, and 2 TBSP of coconut oil. After following the ingredient directions and melting down the Dove shreds, I let the mixture sit overnight. The next day, I checked on the liquid soap, and it was still runny and not thick enough. Checked on it again later in the day, and still runny. At that point, I went back to Youtube and found a few more recipes for using Dove Winter specifically. The newer recipes called for 2 cups of water to 1 4 oz bar of soap, w/o any coconut oil. Since I had already used four bars of soap with the 10C of water, and 2 TBSP of coconut oil, I decided to just add one more bar of Dove Winter. After shredding it, I reheated the soapy mixture, and added the extra bar. After melting it, I let it sit and cool. It got thicker as time progressed, and last night was as thick as body wash you'd buy in a store, so I bottled it, and gave it to my wife as part of her Valentine's Day gift. She used it, and loved it!! She suffers from dry skin all over her body, so making the body wash was the best idea!
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