Homemade Dish Soap

Okay, so I've talked about what to use in your dishwasher that is natural (and not full of petroleum-based chemicals). For me, that combination is still working equally as well as the store-bought cheapie stuff we used to buy.

Now lets move on to dish soap. I've been making my own for a few months now, and I am very happy with it. It works well and it's simple to mix up. I just pour it into an old dish soap bottle and I'm good to go for a few weeks. It doesn't suds up as much as store-bought (since it's lacking that horrible sodium lauryl sulfate), but after about a week of using it, I was used to it and haven't looked back.

My recipe is based off of this one, but I have tweaked it a little. So here's what I do:

Homemade Dish Soap

2 cups water
1/4 cup liquid castile soap (or castile bar soap shavings)
2 Tbsp white distilled vinegar
1-2 Tbsp washing soda**

Heat water over medium heat (do not bring to a boil). Add soap, vinegar and washing soda. Stir until washing soda is dissolved. Remove from heat and set aside to cool completely.

Pour into a dish soap container (24 fl.oz. bottle is good).

It will be watery at first. After several hours it will solidify. Just shake it up. If it's too thick for you, add some water.

**The washing soda is what affects the thickness. So if you'd like it thinner, use less washing soda.

***
 

Proof that it's more gentle on your skin

Between diaper changes, preparing food, going to the bathroom, washing the dishes, wiping up messes with a wet rag, and bathing the kids, it seems like my hands are always getting wet. And I never remember to put lotion on.

During the warmer months, it's not a problem. But at the beginning of the cold season, my hands always get really dry, and even red and cracked around my knuckles (and I still forget to use lotion most of the time).

I changed over to my homemade dish soap just about the same time that I stopped using the store-bought hand soap (just using castile soap diluted with water, instead). And within days of making this change, my dry, cracked hands were as soft as ever.

So this is further proof to me that all these synthetic chemicals are just too harsh for us - in many ways.