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Sometimes you have to work to save money and find cleaning shortcuts. Other times you can just fall into the ideas by accident. The latter happened to me about a year ago when I ran across instructions for making your own foaming dish soap just as my original bottle was on it’s last squirt. I’ve been making my own ever since and no one has been the wiser.
Directions for Homemade Foaming Dish Soap
Ingredients:
- 1/8 cup liquid dish detergent (use a natural version if you use “green” products)
- Water
Directions:
Fill container with about 1/8 cup of liquid dish detergent (you can just eyeball it rather than measuring exactly). Fill the rest of the container with water and you are ready to use.
Savings Calculation for Making Your Own Foaming Dish Soap
Approximate retail cost of original Foaming Dish Soap = $2.50
Approximate retail cost of 18 oz. liquid dish soap = $1.29
An 18 oz. bottle of liquid dish soap will provide enough soap for 9 refills of foaming dish soap. Approximate savings = $21.21
Have you ever made your own foaming dish soap or hand soap?
Do you want to read about other cleaning recipes? Click here.
Linked to Your Green Resource
iDreamOfClean
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{ 23 comments… read them below or add one }
This looks super easy. I have heard of this before but never tried it. I may have to start.
Greta idea! I’m always wanting to stretch out my last bit of dish soap, but never thought to do this! Thanks for the tip.
I have done this with body wash for my kids. I used a empty “foaming” bottle that used to have Bath & Body Works hand soap in it. I squirt the expensive body wash (my son has eczema) into the bottom about a 1/2 inch up and then fill the rest with water and shake it up. This way, my kids don’t use too much soap and the pump is easy for them.
Hmmm…do you think this could be done with handsoap too, to extend the life?
Heather
Yes! I will definitely work with handsoap if you have the handsoap foaming pump. You can mix dishsoap and water or bodywash and water if you want a “softer” feel.
Yes! I have the foam pumps from Bath & Body Works and fill them with a little of my cheap hand soap (I buy the big 64oz or ? bottle) and add some water, give a shake and done!
This is a good idea too (dishsoap)!
Any idea why commentluv seems so finicky? I just can’t figure out how to make it work “every single time” for me. Do you uncheck the box or check the box? Doesn’t seem to matter, not sure it works the same thing for me each time I try ;(
http://www.halloffamemoms.com/2010/08/welcome-new-readers/
Oh wait…now its working. What did I do?
It does the same thing to me and I have no idea why! If I find out I’ll let you know….you do the same for me, ok?
HA! I actually tired this and it didn’t work. I am glad you spelled it out for someone like me:)
Thanks
The first time I didn’t put enough dish detergent in the bottle and it was very watery! You could definitely tell it wasn’t store bought. But, with the right mixture, you’d never know the difference!
I’m coming over to enter your giveaway right now….sounds right up my alley!!
Great tip! I haven’t ever tried this before!
I’ve done this before with handsoap, too. Great reminder, though – I am just about to run out of foaming soap in one of my bottles.
I do this for my soap at the kitchen sink! I use the Dawn pump and Dawn brand dish soap. I fill the container 2/3 water and 1/3 soap, up the line. I slowly return the pump mechanism back into the container and twist slowly. It’s important to fill the water and soap slowly or it will create loads of bubbles! Once the pump is twisted back on, I swoosh around the mixture. In August I bought a new bottle of soap for $2 (without a coupon, gasp!). I’ve refilled my pump a few times and still have 1/2 bottle of dish soap. 60 days and only 1/2 bottle of dish soap?! It’s great!
PS- There are 2 adults and 4 kids in my house. The kitchen sink is the main sink where dishes are done and hands are washed.
I started to do this a couple of years ago and am convinced that my big Kirkwood dishsoap jug (Costco) will last forever. Just to keep from boredom, I was lucky to get a free bottle of Gain dishsoap from their facebook. Now, THAT bottle will stretch, too!
My 4 yo loves the foaming soap for her bath. Making the foaming hand soap is perfect b/c she goes through a small pump bottle every bath. I save money and she’s happy and clean. She loves to bathe when she can use the foaming bath.
Oh, I bet that is fun! I’ll have to try that with my little one.
I’ve been doing this since the early ’80s. I started with a foam pump from the Harriet Carter catalog and added dishsoap to use with dishes. It worked so well, I bought another and added baby shampoo for the kids to use washing their hands (yay! no more bars of soap stuck to the floor behind the toilet). I’ve since graduated to using almost-free liquid hand soap and dishsoap.
Any deals/ideas on getting the foaming soap dispensers? I had one that I got for free a while back that I filled with dish soap and water once it was empty, but eventually it broke (it would not pump, for some reason). I’d love to return to this method, but I just can’t bring myself to pay full price for the foaming soap because I want the dispenser.
Thanks for the help!
I’m so excited to see this posted for other people to try. Since I couldn’t find an affordable green unscented foam soap, I’ve done this for a while. It works remarkably well & saves time too, since you don’t have to shop for two bottles of product. Not to mention that reusing your older container is eco conscious, of course. Thanks for sharing this.
I make my own foaming hand soap for the bathroom and love how much money it saves, but I haven’t thought of making homemade foaming dish soap! Doh! I’ll have to start doing this, thanks for the idea! And thanks for linking up to Your Green Resource!
I do this in all my bathrooms, laundry sink and kitchen sink for our handsoap. I have bought the Pampered Chef Suds Pump (https://www.pamperedchef.biz/tannababiak?page=products-category&categoryId=123) for each of those as I don’t buy any of the soaps that give you a suds pump. It saves TONS of money!!
(hope it was OK to include link…if not please feel free to delete and I apologize)
Thanks for sharing the link! It’s always great to know exactly what product someone is talking about. I need to look into that. Thanks!
I find foaming dispensing of dishwashing soap an incredibly efficient way to wah a single dish. However I am having problems with getting dish soap to come out well from the dispenser. A few years ago (when I was an out-of-work engineer) I experimented with different concentrations of dish soap-to-water and thought I found the optimum ratio for a disposable dispenser. But in the long run, no matter what, I have to push hard enough that the dispenser would break or stop working after a little while, not to mention it took effort to get the soap to dispense. I now have a 15 dollar metal dispenser but an still having the same problem. I had on bottle of Dawn that was liquidy and it worked great – I thought I had the answer – but the new dawn I bought was thick like the other dish brands and cutting with water didn’t help. If I put too much water then soapy water just drizzles out. Donn’t know what I’m doing wrong. Does anyone know, and does anyone know why real foaming soap is so expensive?
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