I Tried It - Homemade Liquid Hand Soap

The other day I decluttered in my bathroom cupboards and found lots of  slivers of of half used soaps and little, wrapped hotel soaps.  We prefer using the liquid hand soaps as they are much less messy and easier for kids to use.  I had recently run out of a giant 4 Litre container of hand soap, so I figured this was a great opportunity to try making my own.

There seems to be a shortage of detailed liquid soap recipes on the web for me to follow.  I'm thinking soap-making is a rather imprecise science!  Especially when you're dealing with someone like me, who isn't very precise to begin with...

I grated up all those little soaps with my cheese grater.  This was super easy, and took just a couple minutes.  I ended up with quite a lot of soap!  I guessed it was about 16 oz (2 cups).  I filled a pot with about 8 cups of water and brought to a boil.

I stirred in the soap flakes and turned it down to a very low boil and continued to stir until the soap was totally blended.  I added a teaspoon of glycerin and a couple tablespoons of my Homemade Orange Oil and then turned the heat off and removed the pot from the burner.

Hmmmm....seemed pretty watery, but all the "recipes" I found said to let it sit and it would thicken.  I made the mistake of pouring it into the repurposed 4 L soap container and and left it with the lid off overnight.

When I came back the next morning it had turned into one solid, squishy mass in the bottle.  Ooops!  I should have just left it in the pot!  So I squeezed and pulled and pried the goop out with my fingers....it was a rather gross process as you can imagine.

Back it went into the pot, poured a bunch more boiling water onto it, stirred it up and simmered it till all was nicely blended, and this time let it sit in the POT overnight again.

Next morning it was the same deal - a slightly less solid, gelatinous lump.  I had to actually dump a bunch of it out in order to fit more boiling water into the pot.

By this point my family was having great fun poking  at Mommy's science experiment on the stove.  It looked like lemon custard.  They were pleased to be the first to check it out in the mornings and report back, "It's gotten all custard-y again, Mommy!"

Anyway, after a few days of this we woke up one morning to find that the soap had actually stayed in a liquid form.  It was rather like the muscousy consistency of snot (sorry - gross but true!).

I poured the whole gloopy mess of it into the container (and all over the counter as well!) and it sits under the sink waiting for it's first chance to fill a soap dispenser.

Would I make this homemade soap again?  I have to say the process itself was really simple.  Grate soap.  Melt in water with glycerin & essential oils if you wish.  Wait.  Try adding more water.  And so on.  (A rough guess would be 8 cups water/cup of soap flakes?)  Anyway, I'll have to give my final verdict after I actually get to try the soap in my dispenser.

On a simpler, soapy side note...want to know the best frugal liquid soap tip I have every received?  Buy a foaming soap (like Kandoo) and when it's used up just keep the container.  Refill with half water, half regular liquid soap & shake.  It's the special pump that makes it foamy, not the soap.  You use half the amount of soap, and it helps little ones with hand washing.


Or there's nicer dispensers out there (wish I would have known that before I spent the money on that bright purple Kandoo bottle!)





Linking up to:
All Things Heart and Home
The Thrifty Home - Penny Pinching Party
Someday Crafts - Whatever Goes Wednesday

I Tried It! I Like It! - Homemade Dishwasher Detergent

I have wanted to make my own laundry detergent, but I'm still working my way through a giant pail of no-name powdered stuff. But on a recent trip to Superstore, I bought the ingredients for laundry soap so I'd have it on hand when the time came.

I easily found these in the laundry detergent aisle of Superstore.

That evening I realized I was out of dishwasher detergent and I wondered, "Hey, can I make my own? Do I have the ingredients?"  A quick search on the google told me what I needed...yes, I had what I needed.  And the "how to" was so simple!

Mix equal amounts of:
Borax
Washing Soda
Use 2 tablespoons in per load.
If your water is hard and tends to spot you can use vinegar as a rinse agent.

I put the mix into a plastic pail with a tight fitting lid - perfect size, but  it wasn't very interesting looking.  I thought, "I should print out some sort of cute retro label..."  That got my girls & I into hysterical bouts of laughter as we googled images for "Retro Vintage Dishwashing Soap".  I ended up printing out a bunch and simply using packing tape to stick them on.  I don't own Modge Podge.  Can you make it from scratch?  ;-)  (A quick search on you know what shows of COURSE you can make your own...shoulda figured!)

Mixing the sacred with the mundane.

This woman is preforming the joyful dance of the tea towel.

It makes me smile every time I get soap.

Anyway, the verdict on the dishwasher soap?  So cheap.  Works great.  No fuss.  Less chemicals.  Less packaging.  I tried it - I like it!

I Tried It! - I Liked It! Community Harvest Box

This month I tried out our community Harvest Box.  It is a volunteer supported program that enables people to buy local, high quality, produce at bulk prices.  I simply sign up (call or email) for a box that month, and on the designated pick up day, they give me a call to let me knowI can pick it up at the drop off centre.  You can order a $15 bag that will be all local & mostly organic, or an $8 bag for non-local produce.  You don't know what will be in the bag from month to month; it will depend on what is in season of course!

The things I like about this program:
1.  It supports local farmers.
2.  Most of the food is organic.
3.  There are no plastic bags involved.  Everything was just placed in a big, brown, paper bag with handles.
4.  It gets me out of a food rut.  I didn't know how much I liked beets till now!
5.  It saves me time at the grocery store hemming and hawing over what variety of apple to buy, what kind of onions are cheaper... I can now spend that time learning to cook new recipes with fresh food.

I'm quickly learning that if I want to change my eating & lifestyle habits, I simply have to change my shopping habits.

To find out if there is a program in your community, google something like "Community Harvest Box" or "Community Produce Program".  I'm definitely doing this again next month!

I Tried It! I Didn't Like It! - Sunflower Seed Butter

I'm trying out some new foods, recipes, and products in my home.  Buying habit ruts are pretty easy to slip in to!  So to help me experiement with new stuff, I'm starting a new series on Mom Starting From Scratch called, "I Tried It!".   As always,  I'll be honest in my reviews from a regular, suburban, mini-van driving mom standpoint.

My daughter's school is "nut-free" as most are, but my 12 year old loooooves peanut butter sandwiches for lunch.  So we found a great alternative called, "Pea-Butter".  A really close alternative!  It's kinda freaky, actually.  If you didn't tell someone it was made of peas, I'm sure they'd just think it was peanut butter.

But it can be hard to find, and the last time I was grocery shopping, Superstore didn't stock it.  No worries, there was another peanut buttery looking spread, called Sunbutter Spread.

I brought it home, opened the jar, gave it a taste, and whoa.

I didn't like it.

It tasted like Sunflower Seeds.  But instead of the flavour you get from eating sunflower seeds one at a time, it tasted like MILLIONS of sunflower seeds at once.  Who knew sunflower seeds had such a strong, acrid flavour?

My 12 yr old didn't like it either, and putting it on bread and hiding it with jam didn't help.

That's okay - I decided to use up some Special K cereal and turn them into Sunbutter Cereal Balls.  I added honey, cranberries,and coconut.  Sounds pretty yummy!

They're still sitting in the fridge.  Reminding me that when you pack that many sunflower seeds together to make a spread, there's just no fooling anybody.