VEGAN DIY - Liquid Hand Soap

Making your own soaps, personal care items, laundry detergents and other household cleaners to save money and have a greener household is not a new concept but it is one that has caught my interest lately.  I have been saving DIY soaps and cleaning products to my Pinterest boards like crazy lately, but I need to take it a step farther being that my family is vegan.  This means we don't use products with animal ingredients in them and we try very hard to ensure that the products we use are not tested on animals.  We are not perfect, we do the best we can to show compassion for our fellow Earthlings and make as little impact as possible on the planet.  Reducing our impact is one of the main reasons I LOVE the idea of making my own soaps!  We go through so many plastic bottles for shampoo, conditioner, body wash, hand soap, dish soap, dishwasher detergent, laundry soap and on and on and on...

Did you know that the average American creates almost 5 POUNDS of trash a DAY!  

For my family that is 25 pounds of trash a day, or 175 pounds a week or 750 POUNDS OF TRASH A MONTH!  That number disgusts me! Seriously makes me ill to think of that much garbage being generated and knowing that my family is only one of millions and millions out there generating trash. I know that that our number is a LOT lower than the average but still, we make too much trash.  Of course we recycle but I have read that a large portion of items that get set out for recycling never actually get recycled and the act of recycling is actually not all that green, we compost and try not to buy single use or other wasteful items.  We buy used as much as possible. We upcycle and we repurpose, so making my own soaps seemed like a very reasonable way to reduce our costs and cut down the amount of plastics we are purchasing.

I am going to be doing a whole series of posts on making your own VEGAN personal and cleaning products.  

Today we are going to talk hand soap.  I buy Mrs. Meyers liquid hand soap which costs me $4.99 for a 12 oz bottle at my local health food store.  This "recipe" will make a gallon of soap or the equivalent of a little more than 10 bottles of liquid hand soap.  This gets me $50 of soap for $6.50! See below for the cost comparison. 

Yes I do realize that you can purchase a 64 oz (1/2 a gallon) bottle of Target/Walmart brand or Dial type liquid hand soap for anywhere from $4-7.  A little info on why we do not buy these "big brand" products, why we spend more money the natural vegan options.  Most of the parent companies that produce those soaps test on animals and some of them, Dial for instance, contain tallow.  If you are not familiar with this animal based ingredient take a second to bone up.  

tal·low/ˈtalō/

Noun:

A hard fatty substance made from rendered animal fat, used in making candles and soap.

If you buy commercial soaps, lipsticks, shaving creams, fabric softeners, dryer sheets, wax paper, crayons, margarine, paints, candles etc... you are likely coating your body, face, lips, clothes and art projects with rendered cow, pig, horse, dog and cat fat.  Totally NOT what I want to be washing my hands with!  In addition to gross animal ingredients and animal testing there are TONS of chemicals that I want nothing to do with in most name brand products.  See at the bottom of the post for ingredient comparison.

Personal care and household cleaning items are two areas where being vegan DOES cost more, to me anyway and though I consider it "money well spent" I am super excited to not only reduce our impact but to start saving some coin!

So lets get on with it! You need 3 things:

1. 1 bar 5-8 oz of vegan soap (Mrs. Meyers and Dr. Bronners are my fave)
2. 2 tablespoons (1 oz) vegetable glycerin
3. 1 gallon good old tap water

My cheese grater has been pretty lonely since my family went vegan, it's finally going to be getting some action again! Your equipment needed for making the soap:

Cheese grater
Large pot
Container(s) to store the soap in

Measure 1 gallon of water into a large pot and put on med/high.  Grate the entire bar of soap, I used 1 bar of Dr. Bronner's Peppermint and my whole kitchen smelled (and still smells) minty fresh while I was making the soap. Add the grated soap to the water, add 2 tablespoons of glycerin and stir it up.  Keep over the heat until the grated soap is completely melted, but don't boil it turn the heat down to med if you need to.  


Remove from heat, it's just going to look like a murky pot of soapy water at this point.  set it aside and let it cool overnight (about 10-12 hours).  Just leave it alone and let it do its thing.  When you come back to it in the morning it will look a LOT different.  Mine had a consistency similar to old jello, do you remember from when you were a kid how when it was left in the fridge too long it would get too thick and solid?  Like that.  Take the electric mixer to it for a minute or so and you will have liquid soap!  Use a funnel to pour into your soap dispensers and storage containers and go count the coins you saved.

Get that cheese grater back in action!

1 bar of soap grated

Heat and mix until the soap is all dissolved

Set aside to cool for 10-12 hours

The next morning you have... The BLOB!

Using your electric mixer, mix for a minute or so

Fill your dispenser(s) and containers and go forth and prosper with clean hands of course!

A few notes

• This will be a bit thicker than liquid soap you may be used to.  This does not bother me but if it bothers you, you can add a few more cups of water when you are doing the final mix with the mixer until you get the consistency you like. Bonus *Thinning it down more means you get more soap, which means you save even more money!
• This soap WILL NOT lather up all the suds you are used to.  This does not mean it is not cleaning your hands, IT IS.  All those suds from commercial soaps are the result of chemical sudsing agents added to the soaps to make them make bubbles and make you think your hands are cleaner.

Cost Comparison

4.99 for a bar of Dr. Bronners Soap

1.50 for 1/2 a bottle of glycerin (2.99 a bottle)

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6.49 for a gallon homemade liquid hand soap

4.99 a bottle for store bought

x 10 bottles

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49.99 for a gallon of store bought liquid hand soap 

For a savings of $43.50!  This gallon of soap will last my family at least 6 months, so I'll have plenty of time before I run out to keep an eye out for sales on Mrs. Meyer's or Dr. Bronners bar soaps and save myself a few more pennies!

Ingredient Comparison

Dr. Bronners Peppermint Soap 

INGREDIENTS:
Organic Coconut Oil*, Organic Palm Oil*, Sodium Hydroxide**, Water, Mentha Arvensis*, Organic Olive Oil*, Organic Hemp Oil, Organic Jojoba Oil, Organic Peppermint Oil*, Salt, Citric Acid, Tocopherol
* CERTIFIED FAIR TRADE INGREDIENTS
** None remains after saponifying oils into soap and glycerin

Dial Liquid Hand Soap Ingredients

Soap (Sodium Cocoate or Palm Kernelate, Sodium Palmate, Sodium Tallowate (Contains One or More of These Ingredients)), Water (Aqua), Talc, Coconut Acid, Palm Acid, Tallow Acid, Palm Kernel Acid (Contains One or More of These Ingredients), Glycerin, Fragrance (Parfum), Sorbitol, Sodium Chloride, Pentasodium Penetate, Tetrasodium Etidronate, Titanium Dioxide (CI 77891).

Don't forget to check back in the future for DIY VEGAN laundry detergent, fabric softener/dryer sheets and more!