Making vs Buying Soap

[JTA Mom]

So, I know it's cheaper to make my own laundry detergent rather than buy it in the store. Not to mention better because there's less chemicals. It doesn't take much time to make, is easy to use and the money savings is nice.

This got me to thinking. Is it cheaper to make my own soap or is it cheaper to buy it? For those making your own soap, how does it compare to store bought soap?

Ami

[Fuamami]

What is your time worth? How much do you spend on soap every year?

Personally, I doubt I even come close to $20, so I don't really see soapmaking being worth it. I do think it would be really fun to make melt and pour glycerin soaps, but that's pretty spendy.

[tryingforbaby]

I make laundry soap. It is way worth it.
cost:
bar of soap $1.25 (or less)
cup of borax apx $0.25
1/2 of wasshing soda apx $0.25

$2 can't buy even a small bottel of the cheap stuff for. This recepie makes 5 of the big dispencers. I will admidt that at first is can cost a bit. You will need a 5 gallon bucket, mixing stick, an old pot and an old grater. The cost of the supplies was the cost of the big container at Sam's. It can be hard to find some of the supplies. For example I couldn't find Fels Naptha soap... I found a pharmacy to order it for me. Borax is easy. I found it at wal-mart. The washing soda I ordered online... only to find it the next day at publix. The lady at the service desk told me to save the box when I am out (or close to it) and she would order it for me. At publix it was less the $3 online it was $7 plus shipping. Needless to say I have enough for a few years!

[tryingforbaby]

oh I am sorry I just reread your post and you are refering to hand, body, face, dish etc.

[slsurface]

I make my own soap for several reasons, 1) no chemicals, 2) no allergens ( I have very sensitive skin and cannot tolerate any scents or colors), and 3) WAYYY cheaper.

I make olive oil castile soap. It requires no special equipment or materials like glycerin soap does. I spend about $7 to make a dozen bars of soap. It takes as little as a half hour to make a batch of soap, plus two days to cure. I typically make soap 3 to 4 times a year at the rate of soap consumption in our house. And that also includes soap that I give away as gifts.

Now compare what olive castile soap costs at Better Heath stores in my area, which is $4 to $8 per bar, and my soap at $7 for 12 is a great deal!

[Fuamami]

Originally Posted by slsurface

I make my own soap for several reasons, 1) no chemicals, 2) no allergens ( I have very sensitive skin and cannot tolerate any scents or colors), and 3) WAYYY cheaper.

I make olive oil castile soap. It requires no special equipment or materials like glycerin soap does. I spend about $7 to make a dozen bars of soap. It takes as little as a half hour to make a batch of soap, plus two days to cure. I typically make soap 3 to 4 times a year at the rate of soap consumption in our house. And that also includes soap that I give away as gifts.

Now compare what olive castile soap costs at Better Heath stores in my area, which is $4 to $8 per bar, and my soap at $7 for 12 is a great deal!

Where do you get your castille? Online? Please share, I've wanted to do this forever!

[JTA Mom]

Originally Posted by Fuamami

What is your time worth? How much do you spend on soap every year?

Personally, I doubt I even come close to $20, so I don't really see soapmaking being worth it. I do think it would be really fun to make melt and pour glycerin soaps, but that's pretty spendy.

I go through a LOT of soap a year. Well, my extended family does. We also use it to make laundry detergent, and we wash a lot of clothes. So it all adds up. I'm just wondering if it makes more sense cost wise to hound the dollar store for 4packs or if making it comes close.

Originally Posted by tryingforbaby

I make laundry soap. It is way worth it.
cost:

Oh, I know! It's insane the markup on detergent at the store. Also, since I don't have to use fels naptha, it's even cheaper. I can use Ivory or, my personal fave, Zote. 99cents for a double bar--super cheap and no nasty chemicals!

Originally Posted by slsurface

I make my own soap for several reasons, 1) no chemicals, 2) no allergens ( I have very sensitive skin and cannot tolerate any scents or colors), and 3) WAYYY cheaper.

I make olive oil castile soap. It requires no special equipment or materials like glycerin soap does. I spend about $7 to make a dozen bars of soap. It takes as little as a half hour to make a batch of soap, plus two days to cure. I typically make soap 3 to 4 times a year at the rate of soap consumption in our house. And that also includes soap that I give away as gifts.

Now compare what olive castile soap costs at Better Heath stores in my area, which is $4 to $8 per bar, and my soap at $7 for 12 is a great deal!

That sounds like a really good price for olive oil castile! What is your recipe? Me & my entire family are really sensitive to chemicals in regular soaps too. It's Ivory or one of those super-fatty soaps like Dove. Well, we do get the cheapo stuff, but then our skin is super dry, flaky, & just icky. My mom once got a steal on olive oil castile soap and we hoarded those things! Oh, and were do you get the materials to make your soap?

Ami

[tankgirl136]

If you like Ivory you are most likely going to be best making a Lard based soap since Ivory is mostly that, Lard soap is very cheap to make and many people like it. As for Dove it is not soap at all it is a detergent bar, that makes it very different.

Personally while I make my own soap, I do not have the patience to grind up the soap to make laundry soap. I have had good intentions to do it with soap scraps but never get too it

To make soap the hardest ingredient to find is Lye, everything else can easily be found at your local grocery store or home store. I know you can sometimes still find lye, but I buy mine in bulk so I am not much help there.

[velochic]

I make my own soap because dd and I have skin issues. I make a very, very simple lye soap: lye, lard, water. Dd likes to have a natural essence in the soap, so I will put in lavender or rose sometimes.

1 (16oz.) can of lye is $3.89
1 (4lb.) tub of lard is $4.89

I use about 1/2 of a can of lye to a tub of lard. So I'm spending about $6.50 and it makes about 30 bars. I have no special equipment. I use an icing bucket from the bakery, an old wooden spoon and a plastic drawer I pull out for the mold when I'm making soap. This much soap will last us most of a year.

So, for us it's very cost-effective, but more than that it is healthier for our skin.

The essence is $2.49, so at most we pay $9/year for soap.

ETA: my father, who is truly my traditional homemaking skills muse, brought us an entire case of lye (because he knows how hard it is to find) earlier this year. We have enough lye for the next 25 years! . I keep about 20lbs. of lard around in my pantry (not for eating!!) and the last time I bought it, it was cheaper than I listed above, so in reality, for us, we spend only about $5/year on soap because the lye was free.

Lye is caustic, so it must absolutely be kept dry. Be careful about that.

[JoyfamMama]

So you do NOT have to use Fels-Naptha soup to make laundry soap?? Or am I confused? lol
I would love to use a gentle soap, like Ivory, or I also can get unlimited homemade goat's milk soap from my MIL (aren't in-laws just great? ) that would be nice to use, since I know exactly what is in it.

Thanks for your help!

[my3monkees]

I make and sell soap, so I want to throw in a little bit about safety. I will say that making soap is relatively easy and fun.
But along with the purchase of lye and oils. You will want to purchase a very accurate scale preferably digital. Measuring out the ingredients is very risky you need a scale for accuracy. You do not want a lye heavy soap! Safety goggles and gloves are a must. Even a very, very small amount of lye dropped on the skin burns!! Ask me how I know! LOL
Millers soap site has a lot of good information about making soap.
If you do cold process soap you need to allow a good 4-6 weeks of curing time for a nice mild soap. Castille generally require an even longer cure time.
Hot process soaps, technically are ready to use immediately but are still milder and last long if given a couple of weeks to cure.
Once you have tried a good homemade soap, I guarantee you will never be able to go back to store bought again!!:

[mommathea]

Originally Posted by JoyfamMama

So you do NOT have to use Fels-Naptha soup to make laundry soap?? Or am I confused? lol
I would love to use a gentle soap, like Ivory, or I also can get unlimited homemade goat's milk soap from my MIL (aren't in-laws just great? ) that would be nice to use, since I know exactly what is in it.

Thanks for your help!

you can use just about any bar soap to make laundry soap. The moisturizing bars don't realy work because the moisurizing stuff coats the clothes and the build but any regular cleaning bar works great.

[JTA Mom]

Originally Posted by velochic

I make my own soap because dd and I have skin issues. I make a very, very simple lye soap: lye, lard, water. Dd likes to have a natural essence in the soap, so I will put in lavender or rose sometimes.

Before your father bought the bulk lye, where did you get it? Also, if it's truly impossible to find in my area (there's only one store that carries washing soda for 20 miles) where did you get the bulk lye? Also, how much is half a can approximately? I have a digital scale, so I can weight this out. 30 bars for about $7--now that is an awesome price for pure soap!

Originally Posted by JoyfamMama

So you do NOT have to use Fels-Naptha soup to make laundry soap?? Or am I confused? lol
I would love to use a gentle soap, like Ivory, or I also can get unlimited homemade goat's milk soap from my MIL (aren't in-laws just great? ) that would be nice to use, since I know exactly what is in it.

Thanks for your help!

Yep, no need to use fels naptha. Just don't use a 'moisturizing' soap. But almost all soaps, especially the really, really cheap ones (aka not going to have emollients added) are good for laundry making. I've even heard of people using soaps like Irish Spring!

Originally Posted by my3monkees

I make and sell soap, so I want to throw in a little bit about safety. I will say that making soap is relatively easy and fun.
But along with the purchase of lye and oils. You will want to purchase a very accurate scale preferably digital. Measuring out the ingredients is very risky you need a scale for accuracy. You do not want a lye heavy soap! Safety goggles and gloves are a must. Even a very, very small amount of lye dropped on the skin burns!! Ask me how I know! LOL
Millers soap site has a lot of good information about making soap.
If you do cold process soap you need to allow a good 4-6 weeks of curing time for a nice mild soap. Castille generally require an even longer cure time.
Hot process soaps, technically are ready to use immediately but are still milder and last long if given a couple of weeks to cure.
Once you have tried a good homemade soap, I guarantee you will never be able to go back to store bought again!!:

I have a digital postal scale I can use. Is that okay? What's the difference between a cold processed and a hot process soap? We have enough regular soap that a month of curing time should be fine. This is Miller's soap site, right: http://www.millersoap.com/? If so, I see she has a lot of coconut oil & palm oil in her recipes. Those things are incredibly hard to find & expensive. Can I make a plain lard soap without them, using just the big buckets of lard at the supermarket?

I'd love to make an olive oil castille soap, since my whole family loved them. They are so expensive though. I can get big jugs of olive oil from Costco. The grade of olive oil doesn't matter when making soap, right? So I can buy the cheapest one?

Ami

[slsurface]

Originally Posted by Fuamami

Where do you get your castille? Online? Please share, I've wanted to do this forever!

Originally Posted by JTA Mom

That sounds like a really good price for olive oil castile! What is your recipe? Me & my entire family are really sensitive to chemicals in regular soaps too. It's Ivory or one of those super-fatty soaps like Dove. Well, we do get the cheapo stuff, but then our skin is super dry, flaky, & just icky. My mom once got a steal on olive oil castile soap and we hoarded those things! Oh, and were do you get the materials to make your soap?

The basic recipe is bees wax, olive oil, lye, water, and EO (optional). I've posted the specifics many times here before...Off the top of my head I think it's 1oz wax, 1-14oz bottle of olive oil (I buy the cheap stuff for $3.49 a bottle at Aldi for soap making), 1C cold water, 2 oz lye powder.

I bought the lye years ago at Meijer grocery, one container will last a VERY LOOOONG time! The bees wax comes from Better Health, it's cheap too.

[AngelBee]

:

[neetling]

Originally Posted by AngelBee

:

subbing

[velochic]

Originally Posted by JTA Mom

Before your father bought the bulk lye, where did you get it? Also, if it's truly impossible to find in my area (there's only one store that carries washing soda for 20 miles) where did you get the bulk lye? Also, how much is half a can approximately? I have a digital scale, so I can weight this out. 30 bars for about $7--now that is an awesome price for pure soap!

The lye isn't really "bulk". It's 12 (16oz.) canisters in one case. I use about 1/2 can of lye per batch of soap. I don't measure it... my father taught me how to make the soap and it's all kind of by feel, like cooking. I know a lot of people measure it all out very precisely, but I've never needed to do that.

I'm pretty sure I can still buy lye, although I haven't for ages. I live about 15 minutes from the absolutely NEATEST country store. Technically they call themselves a hardware store, but they have one of EVERYTHING. Some of the things that I have found in this store that I have not been able to find in the city are: lye, bluing, fels naptha, rubber gaskets for hermetically sealed jars, washboards, tins cups (for camping), coffee percolator parts, old-timey canned foods like Chow-Chow and other relishes.

My guess is that if you find one of these "country" stores that has just about everything, if they don't carry lye, they will at least order some for you.

My dad bought the case of lye through a hardware store where he lives (extremely rural area where everyone literally knows everyone else, so there was no question about what his purpose was for the lye).

You want to make sure that the lye you get is pure sodium hydroxide. If there are other chemicals, it can mess up the saponification process.

Good luck and happy soap making!!

[Chicky2]

subbing...

[~Boudicca~]

The other night me and the moms in our homeschool group had our monthly child-free "Diva'a Night" : and I taught them how to make soap. I used to have a natural skincare and herbal remedy business so I had a good selection of oils and stuff to choose from. I used coconut, palm, olive, and sweet almond oil with lemongrass, ginger, gingergrass, lime, and ylang ylang EOs. At the end we worked out the math to figure out the cost and it was roughly $1.53 per bar. My mold is a slab mold and we were able to cut it up into 36 bars. If you were to buy it at Whole Foods I am sure it would run you $4 a bar easily.

Here is my friend's and you can see the picks (I am the chick in the tie-dye shirt .

http://homeschoolgardener.blogspot.c...-own-soap.html

http://homeschoolgardener.blogspot.c.../soap%20making

That soap was pretty fancy compared to the stuff I make at home, which is usually just a plain oil base and lye and no EOs. It is much cheaper per bar than the one I made that night.

[my3monkees]

The last I checked both Ace Hardware and Tractor Supply both carried the Roebic brand of lye. Lowe's used to, but I think they have discontinued it.

I have a digital postal scale I can use. Is that okay? What's the difference between a cold processed and a hot process soap? We have enough regular soap that a month of curing time should be fine. This is Miller's soap site, right: http://www.millersoap.com/? If so, I see she has a lot of coconut oil & palm oil in her recipes. Those things are incredibly hard to find & expensive. Can I make a plain lard soap without them, using just the big buckets of lard at the supermarket?

Yep, you can just make a plain old soap using oils from the grocery store! A good site to figure out amounts is www.soapcalc.com. You just plug in the amount of soap you want the oils you want to use and it figures the rest out. it is a bit confusing at first but once you play around with it a bit its easy!