DIY Foaming Hand Soap

Creating your own DIY foaming hand soap might be one of the easiest ways to save money (and prevent excess waste!) in your home.

In anticipation of the many diaper changes my husband and I are about to take on (due date is only about 4 weeks away now!), plus considering the health concerns surrounding over-use of antibacterial hand soaps, we have started re-filling the foaming hand soap bottles we already had with these eco-friendly ingredients:

DIY Foaming Hand Soap Ingredients

• Water
• Liquid Castile Soap
• Vegetable Glycerin (although I originally just used Avocado Oil from our pantry and it worked fine)
• Essential Oil (I used eucalyptus because of its antibacterial properties – lemon or lavender would also be nice or check out this list of 11 antibacterial essential oils from Healthy Focus for more ideas)
• Foaming hand soap dispenser (Or recycle an empty foaming hand soap dispenser you have on-hand – I recycled an empty one I had originally purchased from Trader Joe’s)

This DIY recipe is so simple, anyone in the family could do it. It’s especially easy if you keep all of your ingredients corralled in one place like I try to do with my cleaning kit caddies.

Additionally, this DIY foaming hand soap recipe is a huge money saver. My husband is the type of person who washes his hands 1493284 times a day (he gets serious anxiety whenever his hands are dirty or sticky – a characteristic that I appreciate but also cracks me up regularly), so we go through hand soaps very quickly! I hate constantly buying new plastic soap dispensers from the grocery store so this DIY has been an awesome alternative for us.

DIY Foaming Hand Soap How-To:

1. Start by filling your foaming hand soap dispenser 4/5’s of the way full with water.
2. Next, fill the rest of the dispenser ALMOST to the top with liquid Castile soap, leaving room for a small amount of vegetable glycerin.
3. The addition of vegetable glycerin will ensure that your foaming hand soap isn’t too drying, but if you don’t have any on hand you can try substituting with other household kitchen oils. I ended up using avocado oil which worked fine in this recipe.
4. Add a few drops of your favorite essential oil for scent.
5. Lastly, shake and set by the sink for your family and guests to enjoy!