Homemade Liquid Handsoap

I wanted to make at least two batches of this before I posted about it, but I have been making liquid handsoap at a fraction of the cost of purchasing handsoap with my weekly groceries. 

You may or may not recognize this soap called Octagon, but it has been around for a long, long time.  It is an all-purpose soap that, from all I have read, has lemon grass and olive oil in it.  It is 85 cents a bar at my local Lowe’s Foods.

To Make Liquid Handsoap:

I grated one bar of Octagon soap  (7 ounces) into a heavy pot.  I then added 8 cups of water and placed the pot on a burner at medium heat – no more than that because I don’t want the stuff to boil hard and send a lot of fumes through the house.  In fact, I don’t boil it at all.  I keep it hot enough to melt the soap and so that you can see the steam coming off of it and I use a whisk to stir it just until all pieces of soap are completely dissolved into the water.  This takes a few minutes.  The first batch I made contained only the Octagon soap and water.  In the second batch I put about 15 drops of lavender essential oil once the soap had dissolved.  From that point I leave the soap mixture on medium heat for about 25 more minutes, sirring occasionally.  I then remove the pot from heat and let it cool, continuing to stir occasionally.  It will look like it’s going to separate, but keep stirring occasionally.  Once it cools and is stirred again it turns into a thick liquid soap.  At least that’s been my experience.  I ladle the mixture, which can be a bit “stringy” through a funnel and into pump bottles.  This batch will make roughly 60 or 65 ounces of soap.  For 85 cents.  And so far so good!  The pump does not clog, the soap does not separate.  One time I had to shake a pump bottle a bit because there seemed to be an air bubble, but other than that, no problem.

A note of caution:  The reason I don’t let it boil is because of the fumes.  I think soaps (especially containing lye) and perfumes can be very irritating.  I also don’t stand over the pot constantly and breathe the fumes in, and I make sure I have plenty of ventilation.  It seems to me that working with soaps would be quite irritating for anyone with asthma or respiratory issues, so proceed at your own discretion.