Homemade Natural Dish Soap
What you use to wash dishes is just as important as what you put in your body and on your skin. While washing the dishes, the chemicals in the soap are absorbed into your skin and later any soap residue left on the dishes will be consumed. I make a quick and easy natural eco-friendly soap that can rival the cleaning power of any conventional dish soap.
You will need:
Dr. Bronner's bar soap, washing soda (NOT baking soda, found in the laundry aisle), distilled white vinegar (cuts grease, antibacterial, and removers odors), cooking pot, empty soap dispenser, storage container, grater, mixing spoon, funnel, & measuring spoon
Optional: tea tree oil (antibacterial), essential oil (for natural fragrance), vegetable glycerin (moisturizer), and vitamin E oil (preservative)
Basic
ratio: 1.5 cups of water per 1 tablespoon soap shreds, 1 tablespoon
distilled white vinegar, 1 tablespoon washing soda
I customized the basic ratio to one that works best for me and generates about 1.5 galloons of soap:
24 cups water, 1 cup soap shreds, 1 cup distilled white vinegar, 1 tablespoon washing soda
How to make your own natural dish soap:
Step 1: Fill pot with 24 cups of water and let boil
Step 2: Shred a bar of soap. I do this over a piece of wax paper so clean up is easy. I reuse the wax paper and store the extras in a reusable plastic bag with the soap label.
Step 3: Once the water boils add 1 cup of each: soap shreds, washing soda, and distilled white vinegar.
Step 4: Stir until soap shreds melt then remove from heat to let cool for several hours.
Step 5: Once cooled stir in optional ingredients: 10-15 drops of tea tree oil, 1 tablespoon of vegetable glycerin, essential oil, and vitamin E.
Step 6: As it cools, the mixture will start to gel. This process can take several hours, so let is sit and stir on occasion. When mixture is ready it will form into a thick gel-like consistency.
Step 7: Once gelled use a funnel to pour soap into a disinfected dispenser and storage container.
Step 8: Shake dispenser before use.
The end result:
I use a reusable an eco-friendly dish sponge that you can find here.
Unlike conventional dish soap, this soap does not contain a surfactant, a harmful chemical designed to create suds. While this soap recipe naturally suds on its own, do not expect the same amount of suds as from conventional dish soap. Society created the false belief that clean is defined by large amounts of soapsuds, however we know this is not true.
As you will learn from this blog, the ingredients for the recipe are repeated for other homemade products. If you are new to making homemade products, purchasing the required ingredients will cost more than buying one bottle of conventional dish soap, but the ingredients will last you a long time and are used for other homemade recipes.
This dish soap is the basis for several other homemade products.
Check back to learn other ways on how you can use this dish soap recipe!
If you try this recipe let me know in the comments how it turned out!
