DIY Dish Soap

Once upon a time I attempted to make dish soap at home. I was following the guidance of a Readers Digest recipe book which contained a dish soap recipe that required liquid soap. It also included a recipe for "liquid soap", which was made out of dissolved bar soap. The resulting dish soap was basically lather-less, impossibly thick, and took me over a year of glopping it onto a dishcloth to use up. My appetite for DIY dish soap was pretty low after that, and I settled on the refillable variety you can buy at Lukes Drug Mart.

However, with a stock pile of Dr. Bronner's and vinegar in my basement, and the Internet to help me, I thought I would give it another go.

This is a variation on a variety of recipes found around the Internet, most of which are slightly different combinations of the same basic ingredients. Mine is a slight adjustment on the one from Frugally Sustainable.

• 1/2 Cup Liquid Castile Soap
• 1 TBSP White Vinegar
• 3 TBSP grated soap flakes
• 10 drops Tea Tree Oil
• 1 1/2 Cups Hot Water

Combine the first 4 ingredients, and then stir in the hot water until the soap flakes are dissolved and everything is combined. Let cool and then transfer to a pump-top or squirt bottle. I am using the pump-top bottle I got from Lukes, but you could also just reuse an old dish soap bottle.

Warning: this soap comes out a little on the thin side. I tried to make up for that with extra soap flakes, but if desired, you could try adding a tablespoon of washing soda as the Frugally Sustainable recipe suggests. I was all out of washing soda, and am not currently using it for any other cleaning products, so I didn't want to buy it just for the purpose of thickening dish soap.

That's it, enjoy!

Do you make your own dish soap? Leave a comment!