craftgrrl | Make your own shower gel out of a bar of soap (no lie)!! (Reply)

How to turn a bar of soap into shower gel!! This recipe is loosely based on the recipe from Home Made Best Made Which is THE BEST BOOK EVER!!!

You will need:

1 bar of SOAP (not the translucent glycerine kind- I haven’t tried that yet, so I’m not sure if it would work well)
Small pot (Get at the Dollar Store)- like 1 quart size
2 cups water
Cheese grater (Get this at the Dollar store)
Large metal stirring spoon (Dollar store)
Measuring cups (Dollar store)
Newspaper (to protect your countertops and other surfaces)

1) Turn on your stovetop to Medium. Pour half the water (1 cup) into your pot and let heat up on the stove.
2) Grate about 3/4 of your bar of soap. I grated a whole bar, but I think it may have been too thick. So either 3/4 or a whole bar, it don’t matta’.
3) Dump your soap flakes into the water on the stove and start stirring.
4) After a minute or two, add the rest of the water (another cup).
5) Turn your stove temp to between Medium and Low. Stir stir stir. For awhile. Keep stirring. And when you’re tired of stirring, stir some more. You have to get all the soap flakes to dissolve. They will, I promise. It’s ok if some bubbles form on top of the water.
6) when all the flakes of soap have dissolved, turn the stove off and move the pot o’ soapy mess to a cool burner and go watch SpongeBob for awhile.
6a*) Come back, get sad because you think this big pot o’ mess will never turn into shower gel, shed a frustrated tear, then eat some M&M’s and pet your puppy dog for a little while longer.
7) When pot has cooled a bit, move to the countertop (use a potholder under it! You weren’t born in a barn!!), and watch in amazement as it rapidly cools to make some gooey-jizzy-lookin’ mess in a pot. Stir it a bunch so it doesn’t get a lumpy skin on the top (I forgot to do this, so mine was kinda lumpy).
8) OOH! Even better- instead of watching it turn to gooey-jizzy-soap-juice, pour it into bottles while it’s still warm. It will then set up in the bottle, which will be easier on you, but not as much fun to watch.
9) Waaaah-lah!! You now have shower gel!! Easy as that!!!

*-This step is optional

MAKE SURE you do NOT use these utensils for cooking after this!! THAT'S A NO-NO!!! That's also why i bought all my own stuff at TEH DOLLA STORE (Dollar Store = Heaven).

The recipe in Home Made Best Made is more complicated, but I did this the ghetto way. Also, I used Ivory soap (‘cuz it was all I had lying around) AND DO NOT USE IVORY IT IS POOOOO!! Seriously, Ivory is THE DEVIL... in the form of soap. I hate Ivory. Anyway, try it- it’s a fun way to kill a couple hours, and it’s WAY damn cheaper than buying store-bought shower gel. Oh yeah- I’m sure you could add coloring to it, if you wanted to. But I was so sick of the smell of Ivory soap that I just wanted to get it off my stove and away from me. Oh, and if anyone tries this and uses glycerine soap, let me know if that works!!

EDIT: One more thing- an easy way to get the gel into small-neck bottles is to ladle it into a zip-lock bag, then snip off a corner and squirt it into the bottles like that- SOO EASY!!