Homemade Earth-Friendly Dish Soap

Recycle squeeze bottles when making your own dish soap.

Many commercial dish soaps are laden with chemicals, from anti-bacterial and cleaning agents to artificial fragrances. Making your own dish soap is an earth-friendly alternative to purchased soap. Dish soap recipes have a castile soap base. Castile is a class of liquid soaps made from vegetable products instead of animal tallow. If you purchase castile soap in bulk, its price is comparable to that of other green soap products, but you have complete control over the ingredients used.

Things You'll Need

• Plastic squeeze bottle
• Castile soap
• Essential oils
• Eyedropper

Instructions

1. Pour liquid castile soap into a clean 22- to 28-oz. bottle to within 3 inches of the top. Reuse an old dish soap bottle if you have one available.

2. Place 10 drops of lemon, lime or another citrus-scented essential oil in the bottle using an eyedropper. Citrus oils add scent and also help disinfect.

3. Add five drops of lavender or rosemary essential oil to the mix to add more scent. Alternately, use five drops of bergamot, grapefruit or another citrus-based oil.

4. Shake the bottle to combine the ingredients before each use, as they will separate. Add 1 to 2 tbsp. of soap to a sink full of water when you wash dishes.

Tips & Warnings

• Write your soap recipe on the outside of the dish soap bottle so it is readily available when it's time to make more.

• Purchase castile soap in 1 gallon or larger containers to minimize the amount of plastic you add to the landfills.

• Do not use homemade dish soap in an automatic dishwasher, as it will overflow. Dishwashers use special soap formulated to produce few suds.

References

• Keene State College: Green Cleaning
• Easy Homemade Recipes: Easy Homemade Dish Soap Recipes