Bar of Soap to Liquid Soap

Turn A Bar of Soap Into Liquid Hand Soap

I have a confession to make. I don’t like bar soap. It gets dirty and takes a long time to use up, so I usually get fed up with it and throw it in the trash.
Despite this, people seem to like to give me bar soap, which I feel guilty not using. So I have been buying liquid hand soap at $3 a bottle and putting the bar soap in a box with the intention of somehow finding a use for it.
Then it occurred to me that I might be able to convert the bar soap into liquid hand soap. Why didn’t I think of it before? I did some research and found out that it is easy to do. All it takes is melting the soap with water, adding a little vegetable glycerin, and voilà, you have made liquid hand soap.

So I tried it and was thrilled to find that it works great! From one bar of soap, I made close to 2 liters of hand soap, which will last a long time. The only thing I purchased for this project was a $2 bottle of glycerin at my local drug store:

Glycerin is made from plant oils and is commonly used in soaps, shampoos, moisturizers, etc. Since bar soap already has glycerin in it, I tried this experiment both ways, with and without the added glycerin. I found that the below recipe worked fine without the glycerin, except that the soap tended to clump and didn’t have as smooth a texture. It made enough of a difference that I would recommend adding the glycerin, but you can also try the recipe without it, if you wish.

How To Turn A Bar of Soap Into Liquid Hand Soap
Ingredients:

1 c soap flakes
10 c water
1 Tbs glycerin

Equipment:

Cheese grater
A large pot
Measuring cup and spoons
A spatula for stirring
A soap container with a hand pump
A container to hold excess soap
Funnel

Directions:
First, grate the soap. Get out your cheese grater, grab the soap, and get grating. I found this to be surprisingly easy, although the soap particles tend to float in the air as you grate. You can wear a mask to avoid breathing it in. When you’re done, the soap flakes look like grated Parmesan:

One bar of soap yielded a little over 1.5 cups of flakes. The recipe only uses one cup of soap flakes, so I put the remaining soap in a jar for later use.
In a large pot, combine 1 cup soap flakes, 10 cups water, and 1 Tbs glycerin. Turn on medium-low heat and stir until the soap dissolves. This happens fast, about a minute or two.
Let the soap cool completely, then pour into the containers using the funnel. That’s all there is to it!

As I mentioned, this recipe makes a lot of soap, about 6 bottles worth. I put the excess in a large bottle and am storing it under the sink. When I run out, I will simply pull out the big bottle and funnel some more into the smaller bottle.
You can also use this soap as body wash. To make it smell nice, add a drop or two of essential oil to the mix.
As I mentioned, the only thing I bought for this experiment was the glycerin. I reused the bottles and the soap was a gift. (Alternately, I could have saved soap slivers and made the hand soap that way.)
In the end, I used about $.40 worth of glycerin to make the equivalent of 6 bottles of hand soap. That’s a savings $17.60, well worth the half hour of my time it took to make the soap.

UPDATE: I tried this with Dove Sensitive Skin Soap too. If you want to turn a bar of DOVE soap into liquid soap, click here for the recipe.

ETA: The kind of soap you use may be a bit of a wild card, since every soap will have different ingredients in it. I got the best results with a bar of Yardley soap, which did not even need the glycerin to become hand soap. In general, a higher quality soap will probably yield better liquid hand soap.
Dove Sensitive Skin Beauty Bar seems to be more difficult to turn into hand soap, which I would guess has something to do with the “sensitive” formula.
ETA II: I’m happy so many of you are finding this recipe helpful. If you are having trouble, such as thin or watery soap or “snot-like” (?) soap, I encourage you to read through the comments. Lots of people have reported back with their experiences with the recipe. It seems that sometimes letting the soap sit to thicken in the pot or hacking it with a hand blender to loosen it does the trick.
ETA III: For a solution on getting the soap to lather, try a foaming soap dispenser.

Making Bath Salts

Lavender Bath Salt Recipes

Want to try making bath salts? Having a warm, fragrant salt bath is a wonderful way to relax and soothe sore, tired muscles. These easy to make bath salts take only a few minutes to mix together, and can be dressed up nicely with a pretty ribbon to make a lovely homemade gift.

Lavender Walk

There is no single right way for making bath salts. The main ingredients are typically a mix of sea salt, Epsom salts, dead sea salts, baking soda , and essential oils.

Making Bath Salts:

Ingredients:

• 1 cup sea salt
• 1 cup Epsom salts
• 2 tablespoons baking soda
• about 15 drops of essential oil of your choice (adjust accordingly to your preference. Be careful to avoid getting undiluted essential oils in contact with your skin as this may result in a skin reaction in some people)

Method: Mix together the salts in a metal or glass mixing bowl. Sift in the baking soda and stir with a metal spoon to combine. Add your essential oil of choice, and mix salts together thoroughly.
At this point you can also add dried flower petals or herbs (I like to use dried lavender or rose petals). Some people also like to add food coloring, which will result in a colored bath. If using liquid food dyes, just add a few drops until you achieve the desired color.
I like to store my bath salts in a glass jar as the salts tend to keep longer in glass than plastic. Store salts out of direct sunlight because it can degrade the essential oils. If you're making bath salts as a gift, consider packaging them as bath sachets.
Instructions for use:
Dissolve 1/2 cup of bath salts under running water, and lay back and relax! If you have used petals in your bath mixture, you may want to use plug strainer to prevent the petals from clogging up your bath.

Bath Salts Poems

One of our readers suggested that it would be nice to include a poem on a gift tag when making bath salts. So, I had a look around and came across these sweet poem at YWConnection:

Mother's Day is here at last.
This special day will go so fast.
We'll laugh and talk and eat and joke -
When the day is through have a quiet soak!
Love you MOM!!

Instead of mother's day you can substitute "Christmas Day" or "Your Birthday" or whatever. I also found another poem at Craft Elf that's specially for a Mom with a new baby:

This bottle is not for a baby
Instead it's my gift to you
So sprinkle these salts in the tub
And relax for a moment or two.

Replace "bottle" with "jar" or whatever type of container you are using to wrap the bath salts.