Homemade Hand Soap

I'm just going to come out and admit it. I am a pinterest JUNKIE! There are some amazing things to be found there. If you'd like to see what I'm pinning you can click on the red button to the top left of the page.

I have been looking for even more ways to save our family money. One thing that everyone does (or I sure hope does) is wash their hands.

Hand soap refills cost about $4.00 and that gets you a half gallon of store brand soap. Name brand is even more expensive. I have really progressed in the hand soap area. Originally, I bought the individual soap dispensers each time I ran out of soap. I wish I could go back and smack my young self for wasting so much money!

Then, I get a little smarter and started to buy the refill and fill up the individual soap dispensers. About a year ago I came across this tutorial; http://www.infarrantlycreative.net/2010/03/homemade-foaming-hand-soap.html on how to make foaming hand soap from regular hand soap. Genius!! I had received foam soaps from bath and body works so when they ran out I added some of my refill soap to the bottom and then filled it the rest of the way with water. Shake it up and you are ready to roll.

Now, thanks to pinterest I have taken the next step in saving the MOST money on hand soap! I found a tutorial here; http://www.creativecaincabin.com/2011/03/diy-liquid-soap.html that makes 2 gallons of liquid hand soap for $1!!!!!! I checked out the tutorial to make sure it was something I could do easily. Remember your time is valuable too. This turned out to be the easiest thing ever to make. Plus, I am still going to use it to make foam soap so it will last even longer.

Homemade Hand Soap        This will yield 3/4 gallon of soap
Supplies Needed:
~ Big Stockpot or Pot (I bought a really cheap one from Walmart because I didn't want to use one I cook food in)
~ Whisk
~ Cheese Grater
~ 1 bar of Ivory soap
~ 4 cups Water
~ 8 cups Water

Pour 4 cups of water into the pot. Grate your Ivory and add it to the water. Turn the heat to high. Whisk until all soap is melted. Let cool completely. Then, add 8 cups water. Reheat and whisk until all melted again. Let cool completely and pour into storage containers.

That's it! I didn't do the full recipe because I don't have a big enough pot to hold 36 cups of water!

Total Cost was $0.33 for 3/4 gallon of soap vs $4.00 for 1/2 gallon of generic brand of hand soap.

Homemade Baby Wipes

I just made something off of my "To Try" list. They are homemade baby wipes made with just TWO ingredients; water and coconut oil. It was ridiculously easy and took all of 5 minutes. Now, we have to test them on lil man's bum. He has really sensitive skin. If these work I will totally kick myself for not making them sooner! If they don't work for him then I can use them for removing my makeup. It's a win/win situation! Don't you just love it when you can use a product for more than one thing? It makes my life even simpler and there's less to buy. If you would like to make your own click Here for the tutorial. I'll keep you posted on how well they work.

Pumpkin Spice Brown Sugar Scrub

Nothing says Fall like Pumpkin Spice and Brown Sugar. I am loving making my own homemade beauty products. Especially, when I have the ingredients right here in my house. No special products to buy or extra trips to the store. I found this recipe for this sugar scrub here . This is a wonderful blog full of great ideas that I can't wait to try. Some other things that I will be trying from Stephanie's blog are;

Reed Diffuser

Scented Room Spray

Lemon Sugar Hand Scrub

Vanilla Brown Sugar Scrub

These are great gift ideas! Click here to check out Stephanie's Blog. You won't be disappointed.

Natural Deodorant

So, I have a confession to make. I do not buy deodorant from the store. I make my own natural deodorant out of items from my baking cabinet. I had seen this on sooo many blogs and decided to try it out myself. I am one who is willing to try almost everything at least once and if it doesn't work I do not continue to use it. I already had all of the ingredients on hand so I truly had nothing to lose.

Ingredients needed;

4-6 Tbsp of Coconut Oil

1/4 cup Baking Soda

1/4 cup Cornstarch

Mix your cornstarch and baking soda with a fork until there are no clumps.

Mix in your coconut oil and it turns into a paste.

Place in a cleaned out deodorant container or in a small tupperware container. Store in the fridge to make it hard like stick deodorant. If you leave it at room temp it will remain a paste. Apply like you would regular deodorant. What I noticed with this deodorant when you sweat that there is no odor. When you wear regular deodorant and sweat the smell of the deodorant mixed with BO gets stronger. This is not the case with the natural deodorant. It is AWESOME! Plus there are no harmful chemicals in it. It also takes less than 5 minutes to make. It is totally worth my time and money to make this. I've converted some of my family members and they love it.

This recipe came from Kitchen Stewardship. She also goes into more detail on why this is so much better for you.

Try it. I dare you!