My most recent lesson in DIY-ing... soap may not always thicken as the recipe says it should.
After trying for TWO days to get my homemade liquid soap to thicken, I finally had success today by simply putting it in a foam pump dispenser.
Two days ago, I set out to make a liquid soap from this easy recipe: grated bar of castile soap and heated water. As you can see on the linked page, the recipe calls for two 5 oz bars of castile soap and 1 gallon of water. Well, since my bars of soap were 4 ounces each and I didn't have a container to hold a gallon of soap once it was made, I winged it a bit. I used one 4 ounce bar and 56 ounces of water. (My empty old liquid soap container was 56 ounces, so why not?!) This did NOT turn out as I hoped it would.
Beyond those adjustments, I followed the directions from the page I found to a tee: heating the water, grating the soap, combining the grated soap and heated water, and letting it sit for 24 hours.
Twenty-four hours later and my soap was still quite liquidy. So, I grated about 1 more ounce of bar soap, reheated the liquid soap, and added the new soap gratings.
Another 12 hours later and the soap was just barely thicker, so I added glycerin (1 Tbsp) although I knew my castile soap had glycerin in it. (I got the idea for adding glycerin from here.)
Another 12 hours later... just barely thicker.
So I whipped it with my handmixer, as suggested on this page and this page. Great foam on top. Not really any thicker. UGH! By then, I was frustrated, but I refused to toss out the batch. It still functioned as soap and cleaned my hands properly, but it wasn't much thicker than water, and I knew my toddler would say "momma, it's water" just as he did the first time I tried the soap and it ended up quite liquidy.
So, then I googled "what to add to liquid soap to thicken it?" and found this page that suggested that using a foam dispenser would dispense the soap in a better, less liquidy way and voila! Problem solved!
Thank goodness I had a foaming hand sanitizer bottle that was nearly empty; I was almost out the door to go buy a foam dispenser until I remembered that bottle.
So, woohoo! I don't have to go out of my way to thicken my handsoap; however, I'll still keep tweaking my recipe and methods to get the soap the consistency I want it without fighting with the soap and getting frustrated because it isn't doing what I want it to do for two whole days.
So, there's my recent lesson in DIY-land. Over these few days, I've learned that the projects won't always turn out how you want them, but the end result is worth it.
After trying for TWO days to get my homemade liquid soap to thicken, I finally had success today by simply putting it in a foam pump dispenser.
Two days ago, I set out to make a liquid soap from this easy recipe: grated bar of castile soap and heated water. As you can see on the linked page, the recipe calls for two 5 oz bars of castile soap and 1 gallon of water. Well, since my bars of soap were 4 ounces each and I didn't have a container to hold a gallon of soap once it was made, I winged it a bit. I used one 4 ounce bar and 56 ounces of water. (My empty old liquid soap container was 56 ounces, so why not?!) This did NOT turn out as I hoped it would.
Beyond those adjustments, I followed the directions from the page I found to a tee: heating the water, grating the soap, combining the grated soap and heated water, and letting it sit for 24 hours.
Twenty-four hours later and my soap was still quite liquidy. So, I grated about 1 more ounce of bar soap, reheated the liquid soap, and added the new soap gratings.
Another 12 hours later and the soap was just barely thicker, so I added glycerin (1 Tbsp) although I knew my castile soap had glycerin in it. (I got the idea for adding glycerin from here.)
Another 12 hours later... just barely thicker.
So I whipped it with my handmixer, as suggested on this page and this page. Great foam on top. Not really any thicker. UGH! By then, I was frustrated, but I refused to toss out the batch. It still functioned as soap and cleaned my hands properly, but it wasn't much thicker than water, and I knew my toddler would say "momma, it's water" just as he did the first time I tried the soap and it ended up quite liquidy.
So, then I googled "what to add to liquid soap to thicken it?" and found this page that suggested that using a foam dispenser would dispense the soap in a better, less liquidy way and voila! Problem solved!
Thank goodness I had a foaming hand sanitizer bottle that was nearly empty; I was almost out the door to go buy a foam dispenser until I remembered that bottle.
So, woohoo! I don't have to go out of my way to thicken my handsoap; however, I'll still keep tweaking my recipe and methods to get the soap the consistency I want it without fighting with the soap and getting frustrated because it isn't doing what I want it to do for two whole days.
So, there's my recent lesson in DIY-land. Over these few days, I've learned that the projects won't always turn out how you want them, but the end result is worth it.
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