I can honestly say I have not bought store-bought hand soap in (at least) 3 years. Instead, I make my own DIY Foaming Hand Soap, and the results are amazing. It takes about 30 seconds to mix up, and costs less than those fancy bath store versions!
*If you’d like a little more information on making your own homemade foaming hand soap, a Video Tutorial is provided at the end of this post*
Honestly, I have wanted to try making my own DIY foaming hand soap for a very long time, and now that I’ve actually done it, I have no idea why I waited so long. Not only is this recipe incredibly easy to make, the ingredients I bought will last me a very long time; the first thing to run out will be the Castile soap… after 16 batches.
What You Need to Make DIY Foaming Hand Soap
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- Foaming Hand Soap Dispenser– I reused one I already had, but you can buy new as well.
- Unscented Liquid Castile Soap– You can also use scented versions, like lavender or peppermint if you would prefer not to add essential oils.
- Vitamin E Oil (Optional)- Vitamin E acts as a mild preservative and is also great for skin
- 15 Drops Essential Oil- I tend to use an immune supporting blend in the fall and winter, and a mix of Lavender and Peppermint in the spring and summer, but you can certainly create any scent you want. If you are not sure where to buy essential oils, please check out this post.
- Distilled Water– It is recommended that you use distilled water instead of tap water, as water from the tap contains impurities that can cause bacterial growth over time.
Please note that I am making a recipe for an 8 oz. dispenser, if you are using a different size, adjust the recipe accordingly.
How to Make Your Own Foaming Hand Soap
Start by mixing 1/2 teaspoon Vitamin E oil (if using) and 15 drops of essential oil in a small glass bowl.
Once your oils are thoroughly combined, add in 1/4 cup Castile soap and stir.
Pour the soap and oil concoction into a liquid measuring cup, and then slowly add the distilled water until you hit the 8 oz mark. Stir. Then pour it into your foaming hand soap dispenser.
Prime the pump until you see a lovely looking lather of foaming soap.
Done. DIY Foaming Hand Soap in about 30 seconds!
I decided to make a vinyl label just to add a little something to the, otherwise, plain bottle.
Watch This Tutorial
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Love making our own foaming hand soap. We use the Citrus Dr. Bronner’s with the Thieves essential oil. Very lovely and yummy smell!
I’ve been making your recipe for the last couple of years. I love reusing the same dispenser so saving in landfill waste and much less expensive on the soap itself.
As usual, you have such great ideas!! Love this!!! I love the Thieves foaming soap, especially now with covid, but it is more than I can afford each month. Will definitely be doing this. Thanks again Erin!! You are awesome!
Hi, love your ideas and projects. Found the foam hand soap and love making my own too. I was looking for a DIY disinfecting hand spray but didn’t seem to find recipe on your site. Do you have one?
Thank you.
I do not have a disinfecting hand spray recipe, but I’ll have to look into making one 🙂
This is great. I have made something similar, but now will add the vitamin e oil.
Hello – I watched your video to get a recipe for our girls church youth group to make up baskets of useful items to donate to a women’s pregnancy shelter. I have made foaming soap before but somehow could not find what products I had used; hence I was on the hunt for an easy recipe that teenage girls could understand to make up about 30 bottles of handsoap to donate. Thank you again for your video. I think we’re on track to make some handsoap that 30 pregnant women will receive in baskets that hopefully will give them a blessing and maybe brighten their day knowing someone cares about them.
Would this work in a regular soap dispenser?
Unfortunately this will not work in a regular soap dispenser. When using a foaming dispenser, you dilute the soap WAY down, which allows the foaming dispenser to create the correct consistency. If you were to put this in a regular dispenser, the soap would be incredibly watery.
Thank you for sharing this! Just wanted to ask though if Vitamin E will act as the preservative?
Vitamin E will extend the shelf life of the soap, based on the information I could find. Your question got me to do a bit of further research though, and I found this article, which you may also find interesting. It seems vitamin E does help to preserve products, however, the cost is more expensive, which is why some companies don’t use it, and it may not work quite as well as synthetic alternatives. Here’s the article link: https://crunchybetty.com/the-crunchy-chemists-love-affair-with-vitamin-e/
Glad to know Castile soap works, I, have a large bottle of it and hadn’t thought to use it as hand soap! For years, I have been making my own foamy soap by refilling the foam pump bottle with several squirts of liquid hand soap and water. I look for the good quality olive oil hand soaps at stores like Marshals’s/tjmaxx/Homegoods. I have even discovered that actual foaming soap can be diluted down even further and still work. I like Method foaming soap, and I would say I can probably get at least four bottles worth out of one by saving an empty one and filling it about 1/4 full of foam soap from another bottle and then adding water. Definitely a way to stretch a dollar!
I really is amazing how little soap you need in comparison to water 🙂 I used to you just as you did and add liquid hand soap and then water to leftover foaming hand soap dispensers, however, I like knowing exactly what’s going into my soap AND I like being able to switch up the scents I’m using by changing up the oils used 🙂
Thanks for sharing this. I swear by Thieves… it is awesome!
I love it too… and it just smells amazing!