How to Make Homemade Liquid Foaming Hand Soap:
What You’ll Need:
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- Dr Bronner’s Castile Soap
, unscented - Lavender Essential Oil
- Lemon Essential Oil
- Vegetable Glycerin, optional
- empty foaming soap bottle – You can just re-use an old foaming soap bottle you may have at home.
, unscented
, optional
– You can just re-use an old foaming soap bottle you may have at home. To make this homemade liquid foaming hand soap, you’ll need to pour 1/4 cup of castile soap into the empty soap bottle. Add one cup of water.
Add 1 teaspoon of vegetable glycerin if you’d like. This step is completely optional as the castile soap foams just fine alone. But the glycerin gives the soap a thicker, smoother texture.
Then add 5 drops of lavender essential oil and 3 drops of lemon essential oils. If you want a stronger scent then add more in the same ratio. Lemon is a bit stronger than the lavender, so I use a bit less lemon in mine so that the two scents balance. Swirl it around a little to mix together, and your foaming liquid hand soap is ready to use.
That’s it – your foaming liquid hand soap is done!
If you don’t have castile soap on hand, I have also used Seventh Generation dish soap
and watered that down 1:1 and used in in my foaming soap bottles.
If you prefer good ol’ bars of soap, check out our simple tutorial for how to make your own Lavender Goat Milk Soap!
valmg @ Mom Knows It All says
November 13, 2015 at 12:04 amI’ve never tried making my own soap. It’s sort of surprising to hear that it doesn’t take a lot of effort.
Jenny says
November 13, 2015 at 9:02 amI’ve never tried making my own soap. This looks so easy!
Scott says
November 13, 2015 at 9:18 amWe have a foaming soap bottle next to our kitchen sink just for this. So easy to customize the scents!
diane says
November 13, 2015 at 10:33 amI make quite a few of our beauty products and have always had good luck with them. Dr. Bronners is some very useful stuff!
Maura says
November 13, 2015 at 11:09 amYes indeed Dr. Bronners castile soap rocks!!!
dana vento says
November 13, 2015 at 11:23 amI love your liquid foaming hand soap because honestly we have just tossed great dispensers in the recycle that could have been reused. Fabulous idea
Erika says
November 14, 2015 at 8:51 pmI’ve done that too and it always felt like such a waste. Thankfully no more! 🙂
Sharon says
December 24, 2017 at 3:10 pmI made these foaming soaps for office staff, and all our family this year for Christmas. Everyone loved them. Thank you for the “recipe”!
Maura says
December 26, 2017 at 6:30 amSo glad they turned out well and everyone enjoyed! Merry Christmas!!
Karla M says
February 6, 2018 at 8:11 pmHi! I just came across your recipe and am anxious to make it. I just ordered some peppermint Bronners Castile soap so would I just use the water and the soap without adding any essential oils?
Maura says
February 7, 2018 at 7:23 amSure Karla you can certainly just do that. But if you want a more intense scent, you can add more peppermint if you’d like or other essential oils that go well with peppermint (like Eucalyptus, Geranium, Grapefruit, Juniper Berry, Lavender, Lemon, Rosemary, and Melaleuca) This is a very versatile “recipe” and can tailor it to however you want it to smell.
Debbie says
March 25, 2019 at 3:51 pmI thought you couldn’t put essential oils in plastic. Is this not true with making the foaming hand soap?
Erika says
March 26, 2019 at 1:05 pmYes, some essential oils can erode plastic. They’re typically more acidic, like citrus oils. This foaming hand soap does have lemon essential oil but it’s only a few drops and given the size, I’m not too concerned about it eating away the plastic bottle.
Another reason we used plastic for this soap, is that for many families, mine included, it’s not practical to use glass soap bottles (more easily broken with young children.)
Great point – thanks for mentioning it, Debbie!