Homemade liquid Soap/Bathwash

I love liquid soap, especially when it is liquid Castile. It gets used it for everything at our house... body-wash, shampoo, hand-wash,  washing up, washing liquid, stain remover and more. My problem is well the price... yes it is totally possible to get it for cheaper if you can buy it in bulk from places like Melrose here or Aussie soap supplies here. 

For the moment that is not an option for us; but reducing the things I need it for certainly is. I absolutely love The Road To Loving My Thermomixer blog and recipe here. I love Peta's laundry powder, I love the food recipes I have tried of hers... but I must admit I had trepidations about trying the hand-soap/body-wash recipe. The reason: way back in my uni days. a fellow student told me she makes liquid soap by mixing regular soap in the stove with water. I decided to give it a go and my family refused to use it... it went gluggy and smelly. 

I love my up-cycled funnel

But I also thought; what have I got to loose? If it works what have I gained? This recipe did not use the whole bar of soap. I cubed it and weighed it before adding to the MyCook jar. I used the MyCook to mill the soap and mix it with water. In under 2 minutes the mixture had dried out (I may have used about a cups worth, in future I will increase it to 500mL to start with.

I made it in the evening and allowed it to sit overnight so the mixture got about 2 stirs. I woke up to this, but popping it back into the machine just as Peta said, caused it to flow freely again. 

I popped the residual into an empty vinegar bottle. This blog will be a *living* document. I fully intend to keep testing the liquid to see how long it stays good for. 

Zote Soap - Australian alternative


If you have been looking for home-made cleaning products, it won't take too long to come across Zote soap.

It is and ingredient in many American recipes such as this one; but is not available in Australia (has anyone else felt the disappointment?). This fascinating soap features the ability to grow into a foam like substance when placed into a microwave (don't try this with sunlight, it just goes into brown lumps and is quite disappointing). When the foam cools it easily turns to a fine powder in your hands and it then mixed with other ingredients to make wonderful laundry liquids and powders.

I used Australian Botanicals soap to make the liquid soap. As stated above, it is slightly larger than a regular bar of soap. If you have watched the youtube clip... I am sorry but it is not a dollar either, but you are helping a worthy cause... saving orang-utans by using sustainable palm oil and giving people options to earn money without damaging their forests.

Again I had a few small cubes left and wondered if this soap would work... I popped it in the microwave for one minute... fed the cat who thought that the soap looked like a good meal (he had dine)... returned to this. It was very hot to touch but once it cooled down went to powder in my hands.

2-3 weeks on

I found one more pump bottle and decided to fill it with the liquid soap and top up the other pump bottles while I was at it. The liquid in the storage bottle had hardened to "not readily pourable" so I popped it back into the machine (kogan today) water spilled out first then the rest of the liquid came out in a snake like fashion. SEP and ECE parents/teachers this would be very cool slime for your kids to play with... particularly if they like sensory things. 

I use the body wash and hand wash daily. It still squirts with no hassles however I have noticed that the liquid has also hardened a little. In the beginning I was shaking the bottle fairly regularly to keep the liquid flowing... that has not happened in a while.