Frugal Living: DIY Castile Liquid Hand Wash

My previous attempt to save money with DIY liquid hand wash from a bar of soap was an epic failure, read the post here Home Made Liquid Hand Soap.

This DIY Castile Liquid hand soap was top of my projects to try out last week as my upstairs bathroom was running out of the store bought version and I did not want to buy from the store this week without trying this cheaper alternative version out first.

I had to give this last type of hand wash recipe a try before I give in the towel on DIY Liquid Hand Soap forever.  I checked Pinterest out again (any excuse for Pinspiration) as always it is overflowing with DIY recipes.  I like the concept of Castile soap simply for this reason:

Castile soap is an environmentally friendly, biodegradable soap with none of the harmful chemicals present in most regular soaps. In addition, castile soap contains no animal products. Although castile soap is available in bars or flakes, liquid castile soap is easiest to measure and mix. This gentle soap is simple to use, relatively inexpensive, and can be used in a variety of ways.

My attempt at DIY CASTILE LIQUID HAND SOAP. Striving for living ORGANISED & FRUGALLY – Parsimonious Mom

Buying Castile soap in my country was harder than I thought, shop outlets don’t stock this product so I had to go to a soap speciality store/wholesaler about 30 minutes from where I live The Soap Barn, Edenvale.  Don’t worry I bought this in route of another trip so I did not waste petrol.  I found both the soap flakes 500g R159.95 and the liquid 5 litres R325.00.   For my DIY experiment I bought 500ml liquid R34.95.  I do want to say they said the product should not be diluted and used as is.

I kept an existing 400ml pump dispenser I had saved specially for this project so I did not need to waste any money at the plastic store buying one.  I love the way other bloggers make their dispenser from a mason jar – but seriously glass in any of my bathrooms right now just wont work.  Plastic it must be!

I looked at various recipes, the ratio of Castile Liquid Soap to Distilled or Boiled water varied quite a bit from different bloggers.

Well I started with ratio diluted 1:1 parts Castile to Water – too watery; then 2:1 Castile to Water – slightly soapy; now I am on 3:1 and it is usable.  I added Lavender and Tea Tree Oil for anti-bacterial function.

My family are not crazy about it and are definitely used to the store version that has a lot of foam.  I laughed my daughter instantly said “it stinks”, must be the Tea Tree Oil, maybe I added little too much?  It cleans and that is all there is too it.

The Cost

To make 400ml (the size of my dispenser) of DIY Castile Liquid Hand Soap cost R20.97 (I already had the oils).

I buy a 400ml store product at R24.95, so the savings is only R3.98 per bottle.  I am currently buying 3 per month, over a year DIYing will save me R143.28.

If I buy larger quantities of Castile Soap (5l) then the savings would be increased to R196.20 per year.

If I had to buy oils it would cut the savings down or I could just omit it?

What perplexes me is many recipes diluted 5:1 Water to Castile soap?  How on earth? Is the Castile Soap in America different, is that why you can make it for pennies? Would love to get my hands on Dr Bronner Castile Liquid Soap to work out this one out.

Would I make it again?

Was not as much of a cost saving as I thought, but it is still a saving.  So yes I would.  Now  would only make it if I find other uses for this soap to warrant buying in bulk to cover the petrol to drive to buy the product.  Finding a cheaper raw Castile soap would also be better.

Any saving is worth it and they add up over time & this is a greener version too.

Maybe I should try the DIY foaming version?

Striving for cheaper living,

Parsimonious Mom

Frugal Living: DIY Rose Water

I just love roses and if I had the space and money my whole garden would just be roses roses everywhere.  But alas I have to contend with my 3 rose bushes that I have potted, and am still crossing my fingers as I have not killed them yet.

Two of my bushes are heritage roses and are heavily scented.  When the petals started floating to the ground, I was devastated as I wanted that fragrance around me all the time and just could not bear throwing the petals away as there had to be a way to REUSE them.

I remembered rose water on Pinterest and found many posts and was surprised at all the uses, me I want a light scented spray or linen spray to save on my budget. This is a luxury item so I was excited about not spending money on this.

Obviously I had to give it a go!

I went through a few DIY instructions from Pinterest and they do vary. So I picked the easiest one, filled clean jar with petals top with distilled water and a drop of Vodka, let seep for 2-3 weeks.  Well I forgot all about the bottle hidden in the pantry and it has now been about 2-3 months…

How I failed at DIY Rose Water – Parsimonious Mom

Sad to say I just opened it and the result was an epic failure, did not have any rose scent, rather a fruit offish smell.  I am so disappointed but definitely not giving up yet on making my own rose water to use as there were other recipes on Pinterest to try.

SAVINGS: -(minus) R4.50

I had a glass jar with lid and vodka in the pantry, so all I bought was distilled water and the loss was portion to the small quantity I made (just in case of failure).  So there is still water left for another go.

ALTERNATIVE: Got to give another recipe a try, but first have to wait for blooms, otherwise If I get impatient mom I am going to raid your garden 🙂

Don’t forget to follow me on Pinterest Pinterest Parsimonious Mom.

 

Striving for cheaper living,

Parsimonious Mom

Home Made Liquid Hand Soap

Home Made Hand Soap

I go through 1 1/2 litres of liquid hand wash in my home monthly; cost of about R117.00 (average) per month. Yes I am pedantic about washing hands!  I am trying to cut down on expenses wherever possible and Pinspiration got me excited seeing all these posts making their own and raving about it being a fraction of the cost.

Obviously I had to see if it was possible!

I went through various soap bar recipes on Pinterest, they generally were the same.

It was easy enough, grating, heating on the stove mixing 1 bar of soap with just over 4 litres of water.  I let it cool and then bottled up and put the first batch in a pump dispenser…

RESULT: EPIC FAILURE

Initially it looked like the real deal & cleaned.  Wow was I excited.  However it does not work after sitting for a few days.  It seems the longer it stands the less effective it became.  Made no soap suds at all and did not clean your hands. I have just thrown out the whole lot.

SAVINGS: -(minus) R7.00

I was super excited about getting 4 bars of soap at a great deal.  This already saved money, then the possibility of saving even more by DIYing liquid hand wash was going to be the cherry on top.

This should have cost me about  R7.00 (without water & electricity cost) to make 4 litres of hand soap = R1.75 per litre of hand wash, saving me in the long run R71.00 per litre.  My savings should have been boosted by R114.38 per month.  Alas this did not happen.

ALTERNATIVE: Got to give the Castile Soap recipes a try!

 

Striving for cheaper living,

Parsimonious Mom