Goats milk soap has been part of my new, chemical-free beauty routine for several months now and I am SO thankful that those icky, commercial cleansers are long gone. Not only did they cause my skin to break out, but they were so expensive! Just one tube of cleanser would be $7-8, and that’s on sale with a coupon!
Quality goats milk soap is a few bucks less, but it really lasts a long time. Just one bar can last over 3 months!
The only downside to goats milk soap is that it’s a bar. When I’m in the shower, bar soap is just fine. It stays on a little drying rack when it’s not in use and it’s really easy to get a good lather. Call me clumsy, but washing my face at night with bar soap just isn’t that easy.
First, you need she-man strength to pry off the dried-onto-the-counter bar soap. Then, you must strategically place your arms and hands in an unnatural position in an effort to avoid getting your pajamas wet. Once you get a good lather going with the bar, it goes back to its glue-like home on the counter so that it can be re-pried off again tomorrow. You finish washing, rinsing and drying, and then wonder why you bothered changing into your pajamas first since they’re thoroughly soaked – despite your puppeteer dance – and you have to change again.
Clearly, I have some issues to work on.
I don’t know if there’s any solution to the wet jammy issue, but today I can offer a simple tutorial for turning your favorite bar soap into homemade facial cleanser, thus eliminating the stuck-to-the-counter-forever bar soap.
How to Make Your Own Homemade Facial Cleanser
Supplies
1 bar of your favorite goats milk soap (why I recommend goats milk soap)
cheese grater
1 medium sauce pan (not the small one, and not the big one – pick one in the middle)
1 1/2 cups filtered water
a storage container with a pump (I recommend re-using what you already have)
small funnel or a measuring glass with a pouring spout
Method
Using a cheese grater, grate soap until you have approximately 1/4 cup of soap shavings. This will be approximately 1/6 of the bar.
In a medium saucepan, combine water and soap shavings.
Heat soap and water over low heat until the soap is dissolved, approximately 5 minutes.
Allow the dissolved soap to slowly cool to room temperature. This could take anywhere from 1 to 4 hours, depending on the temperature of your home.
As the mixture cools, it will turn gelatinous and reduce in volume. Pick up the pan by the handle and gently swirl the mixture until it loosens a bit and thins. Alternatively, you can use a spoon to stir the mixture, or even an immersion blender to puree the mixture into a very smooth soap.
Note: The more rigorously you stir the mixture, the more bubbles you will get. Swirling the pan results in the least amount of bubbles (seen below) and using an immersion blender will result in the most bubbles. Bubbles won’t effect the cleansing ability of the soap, but they are difficult to pour and take up more room in a dispenser allowing less room in the container for the actual soap. The bubble will slowly go away, taking a few hours to a few days to revert back to soap. Until then, you might need an extra pump of soap in order to get enough liquid to adequately lather when you wash.
When the soap is cooled, use either a funnel or a measuring cup with a pouring spout to pour the soap into a container.
DIY Homemade Facial Cleanser
Print
Serves: 8 ounces
Ingredients
1 bar of your favorite goats milk soap, OR ¼ cup pre-shredded goats milk soap
1½ cups filtered water
Instructions
Using a cheese grater, grate soap until you have approximately ¼ cup of soap shavings.
In a medium saucepan, combine water and soap shavings.
Heat soap and water over low heat until the soap is dissolved, approximately 5 minutes.
Allow the dissolved soap to slowly cool to room temperature. This could take anywhere from 1 to 4 hours, depending on the temperature of your home.
As the mixture cools, it will turn gelatinous. Pick up the pan by the handle and gently swirl the mixture until it loosens a bit and thins. Alternatively, you can use a spoon to stir the mixture, or even an immersion blender to puree the mixture into a very smooth soap.
When the soap is cooled, use either a funnel or a measuring cup with a pouring spout to pour the soap into a container.
3.2.2708
Additional Recipe Notes
Many recipes on the web suggest using glycerin to help achieve that silky smooth texture we’ve grown accustom to in liquid soap. Although it’s vegetable-based, I’m using a very pure goats milk soap in order to help keep my skin clear and didn’t want to add anything that wasn’t 100% necessary.
If you’re starting with unscented soap, you can add a few drops of essential oils. Lavender and tea tree oil are both known for their skin-healing properties, but I would only recommend adding one or the other since their scents would likely compete.
Cost Breakdown
The goats milk soap used in this recipe costs $4.95 per bar, but you can save money right off the top by buying bulk scraps of soap. These are the aesthetically “deficient” end pieces of big batches of soap that aren’t pretty enough to be sold as bars, but they still wash and lather just as well! One pound of soap scraps costs $8, making each 1/4 cup of shavings just 30¢.
8 ounces of homemade facial cleanser = 30¢
Isn’t that an incredible savings over the typical store-bought soap?! Amazing!
Note: If you’re not able to get bulk soap scraps and start with a whole 3.5oz bar, your savings is still worthy to note. It’s just 83¢ for 8 ounces!
Other DIY Health & Skin Care Ideas
Homemade All-Natural Toothpaste
Homemade Powdered Foundation
Healing Acne Naturally
Healing Gum Disease Naturally
Homemade All-natural Face Lotion Bar
Homemade Tinted Moisturizer
Get Even More Natural Health – For a Limited Time! {A Sneak Peek!}
The 2014 Ultimate Healthy Living Bundle is a unique collection of 80 eBooks and eCourses available from top authors, collectively valued at over $1030, but available for only 6 days for just $29.97 – a savings of 95%!
This sale happens just once each year, and every year the collection of resources is different. This year, there are several resources related to homemade beauty products that I think you’d love, including:
DIY Face Masks and Scrubs: Natural & Nourishing Homemade Skin Care by Stacy Karen @ A Delightful Home
The Eczema Cure by Emily Bartlett @ Holistic Squid
Traditional Remedies for Modern Families by Sarah Pope @ The Healthy Home Economist
Essentials of Essential Oils: How to Use Essential Oils for Beginners by Rachel Ramey @ Titus 2 Homemaker
But that’s not all of them.
There are a total of 80 eBooks/eCourses included in the bundle, and 15 spanning the alternative health, home remedies, natural beauty & skin care genres. Between these books there are 160+ recipes and there’s a good chance you already have the ingredients on hand to make at least 50 of those recipes. (You can read more about everything included in the bundle HERE.)
If I had to whittle down those 15 books and pick my top three, I’d choose:
DIY Natural Remedies – Nina offers 26 remedies to common ailments you comes across in daily life. Rid headaches, fight diaper rash, soothe tummies and heal sunburns with essential oils, herbs and supplemental oils and creams to make it all easy to apply. She even covers the various types of storage containers, which are best for which (and why), and an “about” for each of the major herbs she uses in her recipes. As someone who is still a beginner in the DIY medicine cabinet arena, this book is an excellent resource.
Easy Beauty Recipes – Kelly has created 10 recipes that cover the basics of beauty. From chapstick to body butter, scrubs to perfume, her recipes are very simple and affordable. Most can be customized with your favorite flavor or scent, and she even includes printables for each recipe so you can make them and give them as gifts. Nearly all the ingredients for each recipe are already in my kitchen too, making this my new go-to resource when I want to create a special homemade gift.
A Beginner’s Guide to Natural Hair Care – Natural hair care is an uncharted territory for me, but it’s one that has me curious and scared at the same time! Becky breaks down the “how’s” and “why’s” of hair care so even if I’m not ready to ditch shampoo yet, I know what to look for in products and what to avoid. The book is written in simple terms, so even the novice can understand and take baby steps to improve their hair care. Several shampoo and conditioner recipes are included, as well as tips for curly hair and styling dry hair.
If you bought these books individually, you’d pay $23.93. Right now, these three books are included in a sale along with 77 other eBooks/eCourses for just $29.97 (get the full list of what’s included HERE).
Plus, there are tangible bonuses like an essential oil blend for brushing teeth for a healthy mouth (from OraWellness), a gift set with scrubs and luffas (from Homegrown Collective) and natural hard lotion bars and lip balms (from MadeOn).
I’ve delved into all of the books that specifically cover these topics and each bring something unique to the table. If you’re ready to take your real food journey into the beauty, skincare and natural remedy arena, this bundle is definitely worth considering. Just remember that the sale is only live for 6 days and there are only 30,000 copies available. Once the sale is over or the bundles are gone, it’s done!
Get the full scope of the Ultimately Healthy Living Bundle sale HERE. Don’t forget that I’ll be offering a sneak peek into the other genres of the bundle as the week goes on as well. Be sure to come back and see how this bundle can impact your own real food and natural health journey!
What about you? Do you use bar soap or liquid? Do you prefer one over the other? Am I the only one who can’t seem to stay dry when washing my face?!