Homemade Body Wash

Since I've started canning and sewing more I've found that I seem to be seeking out more things I can make myself. I think I've blogged about making my own laundry detergent, but I recently decided to make my own body wash! I was running out and a bit annoyed at the cost when shopping around so I did what any good DIYer would do....I headed straight to Pinterest! I found several good tutorials, like this one, and this one, but I most closely followed this one.

I used vegetable glycerine, one bar of Dr. Bronner's Castille soap and some distilled water. I found the glycerin at New Seasons and they only had a bottle that was much bigger than I need, but I guess that means I won't need to go out and try to find it again for a while!

I used an old knife to chunk the soap up and mixed it with 2 tablespoons of the glycerine and a half gallon of the water. I forgot to take a picture, but I basically just covered it and let it simmer until the soap had melted. I will admit that I was pretty certain I hadn't done it correctly. The result was clear and very watery looking. I decided to let it sit overnight, and sure enough in the morning it was opaque and a darn snotty mess! I put it in jars and added it up, I had just made 56 ounces of lovely lavender body wash!

I bought a plastic squeeze bottle in the trial section at Target and filled it from the smallest jar. I used some the other day and it worked like a charm! It smells lovely and lathered pretty nicely!

Lets add this up.....$1 for the gallon of distilled water, $7.99 for the glycerin (16 ounces, $.50 an ounce) and $4.50 for the bar of soap. For this batch that's $.50 for water, $.50 for glycerin and $4.50 for soap = total $5.50. Aveeno body wash is $5.99 for 16 oz. So for less than I could have bought 16 ounces of body wash at the store I made 56 ounces! Pretty darn good! Oh, and the little plastic container cost $1.29. But I will continue to fill and use it. I looked all over my house for one that I could use, I'm sure I'll find a whole stash of these little travel bottles now but oh well!!

This was such a quick and easy project and I'm so happy I did it! Once I get through all the shampoo I have stocked up from my crazy couponing year, I will be making my own shampoo too! The possibilities are endless!!