How To Make Your Own Dish Soap
For general interest and/or for preparedness. Here’s one way how to make your own dish soap. It’s simple and easy. In comparison with most store-bought dish soap, it will also save you some money.
DIY Dish Soap
It only requires two ingredients. Bar soap (I’ll tell you which one I use in a minute), and water. Here’s how…
Bar soap, which can also be used to make your own laundry detergent (linked below), is really all that you need. The idea is to convert it into a thick liquid soap.
One advantage to making your own dish soap is that you can adjust the consistency-thickness-strength however way you want it.
When it comes to prepping, an advantage here is using one item (in this case, bar soap) for multiple purposes. It is surprisingly easy.
Homemade Dish Soap Recipe
This specific dish washing soap recipe uses Fels Naptha laundry soap, which has been around forever it seems. Other bar soaps may require different amounts of water to reach the desired consistency. I use Fels Naptha because I also use it to make my own laundry detergent, and I like the brand given its historical longevity.
Fels-Naptha 5 oz (Pack of 24)
(amzn)
1. Take one bar of Fels Naptha soap (5 oz) and shave it using a hand grater (or a ‘salad-shooter’). This will result in approximately 2 cups of soap shavings.
2. Place the shavings in a cooking pot.
3. Add 13 cups of water.
4. Slowly warm up the mixture on low-medium heat (without boiling) while stirring occasionally until all is combined into a smooth liquid.
5. Set aside to cool.
6. When cool, the mixture will have thickened. Stir it up to check consistency. A hand mixer works well (don’t worry, it won’t turn to bubbles). This is the step where you may choose to thin it further by adding more water, or perhaps next time you will choose a little less water. It’s a personal preference.
7. Rinse out and use an old dish soap container for your new homemade soap. Store the remaining soap in a cleaned out plastic milk jug or other such plastic jug for later.
Cost Analysis
$1.67 (1) Bar of Fels Naptha, if purchased by the case (of 24) from Amazon as of this post date.
The home-made dish soap recipe above results in about 14 cups (224-oz)
$.07 per ounce
A typical squeeze-bottle of Palmolive might cost double or even triple that, per ounce, depending on how you buy it.
Bottom line… your home-made soap costs just ~ 1/3 of store-bought (generally).
NOTES:
Fels-Naptha can irritate the skin when used excessively. Consider dish gloves.
Optionally add ‘Washing Soda’ to the mix, an old time laundry ingredient (soda ash) which comes in a bright yellow box. You will find it in stores near the laundry detergent. Based on the recipe amount above, add 1/4 cup.
This soap is not going to be as strong or as effective as something like Dawn Ultra or something like that. Just saying… And I do keep some bottles of Dawn around too. However, it’s good to know how relatively easy it is to make you own.
Okay, have any of you made homemade diy dish soap? How do you do it? What’s your recipe?
[ Read: How To Use Laundry Bar Soap and Make Your Own Detergent ]