Getting in a Lather

After making some liquid soap the other week from a bar of castille soap, I discovered that this or any liquid soap could be made to go even further by using a foam dispenser to dispense it.  I understood that that the liquid soap could be diluted 9:1/distilled water to soap for this purpose, which sounded great.

I ordered a couple of foam dispensers online from a packaging company in the UK called Ampulla. They were very inexpensive, costing less than £3 for a 160ml bottle, plus another smaller bottle for travel purposes. Postage did bump the total up, but these were the cheapest that I could find and I didn't have any already that I could repurpose in this instance.  I even considered buying a bottle with a product in it from the supermarket, but didn't want to have to use what was inside if it wasn't a natural product, so ended up buying new.

They arrived the other day, so I set about filling them with the liquid soap and distilled water.  Instead of going out to buy distilled water, I decided to make my own by boiling up some water and leaving it to cool.

I did have to experiment a little with the ratio of soap to water. The original ratio was far too watery and the soap didn't lather up as well.  I think two thirds water one third soap  or even half water half soap works better, but you could make it an even smaller ratio of water to soap to suit your preferences.  Please note that the soap/water solution needs to be vigourously shaken to make it mix properly.

I tried out the foam soap the same evening and found using a foam dispenser does makes the soap much easier and more appealing to use in the shower (above is a picture of how it lathers) and it will hopefully make the liquid soap go further. I must admit though that I did seem to use quite a lot of it in one sitting. Here's a picture of the bottles once filled.

By transferring some liquid soap that I was using in the bathroom into one of these bottles, it freed up a coloured plastic lotion bottle to allow me to refill it with my rosewater and glycerine hand rub, which is now much easier to dispense.  I have decided to thicken up this mixture too by adding more glycerine as it is a little runny.

It's a bit of a trial and error process trying to make your own products, but I'm finding it quite interesting.  Once you get started, it gets quite addictive, so expect more on homemade products in the future.