Homemade Liquid Hand Soap OR Body Wash

This is fantastic!  You take about 8 ounces of bar soap (about 2 bars) and make an entire gallon of liquid hand soap or liquid body wash... genius!

I made two batches in one day; its very easy!  

For one batch I used a natural handmade soap {which I later decided would be my body wash, ok I'll share!} and for the other batch I used Dove soap {which will be our hand soap}.  

I thought it would be interesting to see if there was a difference between using the homemade bar soap vs. the commercial store-bought bar soap.  

The result... they turned out the same, so if you like the scent and feel of handmade soap splurge and buy something you really like because you'll be rewarded with a gallon of the lovely stuff!

I looked and looked for where I found this recipe and was unable to find the original source.  If you know where it came from, please let me know so I can give them credit for this awesome concoction! 

I did change the recipe a bit: I added some tea tree oil for its antibacterial properties and some glycerin soap to help thicken the mixture.

Ingredients:
-2 tbsp liquid glycerin {found in the first aide/band-aide area of stores}
-about 8 ounces bar soap of your choice {choose something that you like the scent}
-1 gallon water
-10 drops tea tree oil {if you want the soap to be antibacterial}
-5-6 blocks of glycerin soap (about 1" thick x 2"wide x 3"long each) {found in a craft store in the soap making section; pictured below}

Process:  {For the first batch I made body wash}
1. Grate the bars of soap.  I grated it directly into the pan I was going to use.  {You can use a "cheese" grater, but I like to use my Kitchen Aide grating attachment because it takes less than a minute to grate the soap.}

I choose this goat's milk soap for my body wash; its awesome and leaves my skin feeling moisturized; it lathers great on my lufa and smells fantastic!  At $4 a bar its not cheap but I got just over a gallon of body wash!

This is what the grated soap looked like;
I didn't worry about the larger pieces
I knew they would melt.

2. Add a gallon of water to the grated soap.  {I used hot water from the tap to help speed up the process.}

3. Add about 2 tbsp liquid glycerin.

4. Stir and turn heat to medium-high heat.

5. Stir occasionally, until the soap melts into the water.

6. Add about 10 drops tea tree oil.

You probably don't need this for body wash,
but at the time I was planning on it being hand soap.

7. Stir to combine well.

8. The next day I didn't think the mixture was quite as thick as I would like it, so I reheated the mixture and added the bars of glycerin {you can add the bars of glycerin right away; you could even grate them with the other bars of soap, although they do melt fairly quickly}.

9. Turn off heat and let cool.  Enjoy!

For the second batch I made liquid hand soap:  I won't repeat the process; its the same as the one listed above.  I just took the some different pictures so I think their worth sharing.

I used 2 bars of Dove.

Both bars all grated and ready to go!

Since I added more bars of glycerin
I ended up having to add more water too (later)...
which ended up giving me more like 1 1/2 gallons of soap!

Enjoy!