Making liquid handsoap

I've recently been thinking about getting back into soap making, which I did years ago when we were living in Michigan.  Since then we've had the girls, and both of them have sensitive skin.  In our house (and even at their school) they exclusively use Dove soap, which doesn't irritate their skin.  However at £1.50 for a 250ml bottle, it is rather expensive.  No one sells soap refills here, so I decided to take matters into my own hands.  I did quite a bit of internet searching on how to make liquid hand soap, and one of the fastest, easiest options I found was at Savvy Housekeeping.  This morning I put her recipe to the test:

I grated the bar soap in my Cuisinart.

 
Then dissolved the soap in water over a medium heat.  I did not let it boil, just get warm enough to melt the soap.  After cooling to room temperature I put it in the fridge to set it faster.  I have no patience!






 


A quick note, I used 1.5 bars of soap, and 7.5 cups of water and no glycerin.  Her recipe calls for 10 cups water and 1 tbs glycerin, however Dove isn't a true soap but a body cream bar, and some of her comments stated people had a harder time getting it to the right consistency.  Since I figured it would always be easy to add more water later (or glycerin for that matter), I decided to start with less, and of course, I just guessed an amount.  Originally I used only 1 bar of soap but my testers (5 year old daughters) said it was too runny.  I waited a day just to make sure it was set, and added another 1/2 a bar to the mix, reheated, and went through the process again.  This time it was the perfect consistency.

roughly 1.5L of soap

Cost of project:

1.5 bars Dove soap       £0.81

1 2L bottle of water      £0.17

1 soap dispenser           £3.00

                                   £3.98 for 6 bottles of soap, or £0.66 each

Keep in mind that the next time I make it, I will already have the soap dispenser, and the cost will go down to £0.98 per 6 bottles of soap, or £0.16 per bottle!  WOW, when you do the maths, you can really see how cost effective it is.  Additionally, when the girls current bottle of gentle body wash runs out, I'm just going to refill the bottle with this dove soap mixture.  Perfect!