Making soap

I was inspired by my sister to make my own laundry soap. While I was at it, I thought I'd try my hand at making some hand soap, too. I'm posting this from my phone, so I can't describe each picture, but it gives you the idea of what we did.

We did the hand soap first. I found this recipe online by googling "how to make your own hand soap". It was so easy to do-just three ingredients and a few steps.
Ingredients: 8 oz bar of soap, 2 tablespoons of gylcerin and a gallon of distillers water.
Steps: grate the soap with a cheese grater; add grated soap to water; heat on stove to dissolve soap in water; add glycerin; stir; the mixture will be clear. Then you have to take the mixture off the stove and let cool; I had to let mine cool for almost 24 hours; then it's ready to use! I have to say it works pretty well. (this recipe is from the Farmer's Nest blog)

We also did laundry soap, a recipe from my sister. So easy. 1 4lb box borax, 1 4 lb box baking soda, 1 box arm and hammer washing soda, 3 bars fels naphtha soap. The only thing we had to do was grate the soap. Then, I mixed the ingredients together. It makes enough to fill a small garbage can and it smells really good. You just use 1 to 2 tablespoons per wash.

Will it save us money? Maybe. The hand soap cost about $10 and made a gallon. But, now we have the glycerin for the next batch. The clothes soap cost about $11 and should last several months. It was just fun to do and even the boys enjoyed helping. (they thought grating the soap was pretty fun) And, the soaps do work-and they smell great!