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Carmelita Fernandes
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How to Make Soap at Home – Lockdown Experiments

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How to Make Hand Wash at Home During Lockdown

If there was one unsettling experience during lockdown, it was dearth of availability of handwash.  With the importance ascribed to the use of handwash and sanitisers to keep the virus at bay, I was near paranoid at not having sufficient stock of it.  Hand wash and soaps had become “absolute” necessities but also were “obsolete” in the markets at the time.

Even if I did manage to get hold of some liquid hand wash, it was often unbranded and its smelly chemical compounds would put me off.  That’s when I had the aha moment – to make homemade hand wash in lockdown.  I wasn’t going to “wash my hands off” this experiment and so I borrowed a book from a coiffeuse friend, on making homemade soap and went to work on it assiduously.  Everyone knows how enterprising the friseurs and coifferurs community can be in terms of throwing together custom made cosmetics, including manicure soap kits.

It was an English (read Brit) book that I looked up, one that listed not so easily available ingredients but one with easy steps to make liquid hand soap at home.  I tweaked the ingredients with locally available ingredients, natural ones too whcih made the preparation of hand wash as easy as a pie.

Well, here’s my step-by-step guide on how to make hand wash at home.  To make your own soap, mind you, is even simpler than making tea.  Try it.

How to Make Liquid Hand Soap : Step by Step

Making your own handwash at home is a boon, as it gives you freedom to customise it to your specifications. Olive oil lends a suppleness, while disinfectant is helpful especially when COVID19 threatens to disrupt our lives. Of course, adding perfume can leave the hands smelling heavenly, apart from the use of organic chickpea flour, turmeric and such.
Print Recipe

Equipment

  • Hand whisk
  • PET bottle with dispenser
  • Plastic funnel

Ingredients
  

DIY Liquid Hand Soap making Ingredients

  • 1 bar soap (I used two half used old lavender soaps)
  • 1 tsp olive oil
  • 1 tsp essentail oil (or 2 drops perfume) (use any perfume of your choice)
  • 2 tsps disinfectant liquid (use Dettol, or a similar brand)
  • 300 ml water
  • 1 dop pink food colour

Instructions
 

How to Make Liquid Hand Soap : 6 Steps

  • Start with grating a soap bar, or two half used ones.
  • Boil water, cool for a minute or two, then add the grated soap to the hot water and stir till soap is well ensconced.
  • Add a teaspoon each of olive oil and essential oil (or a few drops of perfume). Next follow it up with 2 teaspoons of disinfectant.
  • Whisk gently, taking care to not scald your hand in the process. Beat firmly for 15-20 minutes till thickish consistency.
  • Separate the beaten hand wash in two smaller bowls. Retaining the cloud white colour of the original liquid in one bowl. Add a hint of pink colour to the second bowl, to give two different colours to the hand wash - one white, one pink.
  • Pour the now ready hand wash into two bottles, using a funnel. Bottles with dispensers are preferred, to avoid having to touch the corks of the bottles with soiled (or infected) hands.

How to Make Soap from Scratch

The experiment in liquid soap making was such a sweet success that I decided to make my own soap bars on an ongoing basis.  As with most experiments, I was tickled at the prospect of working at soap making at home.   Never knew that I’d have as much fun with soap making and hand wash making process as I did with food preparation.  As my favourite soap brands are Pears and Dove, I employed creative ways to make my soaps appear “see-through” like Pears, yet exhibiting the “soft and creamy consistency” of a Dove soap.

 

Admiring my soap display, I received many an order request for my own homemade soap bars.  I hadn’t, however, considered entrepreneurship having a whole-time job et al, but I thought that it would be a great idea to share my recipe on how to make your own soap at home.  And so, here’s a step-by-step guide for making homemade soap just for you.

Soap making at Home

Besan or chickpea flour) has formed part of age old remedies for skin rejuvenation. Hence the primary ingredient, after soap base, is besan flour in this soap making recipe. It resembles the colour and transparency of the popular Pears soap, is soft on the skin and fully natural.
Print Recipe

Equipment

  • Silicone moulds
  • 2 vessels for double boiling

Ingredients
  

Homemade Soap Making Ingredients

  • 1 tbsp olive oil (extra virgin)
  • 2 tbps gram flour
  • 1 tsp turmeric powder
  • 1 tsp honey (lightening agent)
  • 1 tsp aloe vera gel (optional)
  • 1 tsp olive oil
  • vaseline (to line the moulds)
  • soap base (size of a soap bar, or grated soap if soap base isn't available)

Instructions
 

Process for Soap Making at Home

  • Line around 4 silicon moulds with vaseline (or use disposable plastic glasses if there are no moulds available). I used a flower-shaped mould to add a flair to my soap form.
  • Take the prescribed quantity of chickpea flour in a bowl, add turmeric powder and mix with a spoon.
  • Grate the soap base (or used soap bar if you can't find soap base), put in in a vessel and place the vessel into another vessel containing a little water. That's termed the double boiling method. Never melt the soap directly.
  • Stir when the soap has melted. The melting process takes around 5-8 minutes. The time varies with the amount of heat applied.
  • Next, add the dry ingredients - that is, the gram flour mixture. Do so, little by little, and not at one shot.
  • Add the olive oil, aloe vera gel and honey and stir in well.
  • When well enconsced, pour the hot melted soap base mixture into the pre-greased moulds without delay.
  • Allow it to set for 30 minutes at room temperature. If it does not set outside, let it sit in the refrigerator for a while till well set.
  • Demould when done, voila there's your own homemade soap bar! Use within a month of preparation for best results. Package them in butter paper for preservation on the shelf.

Video

Notes

The core of soap making stays the same but its ingredients can vary, and so could its natural colurs.  Think creatively to make your soap unique, your own customised brand.  Wrap them in brown paper, and tie it with a thin rope or twine.  Use polka dotted ribbons to wrap them up in fancy syles.  
Foam your hands with as much soap as you like or even blow bubbles with  your kids to enjoy some homemade soapy fun.

 A Squeak Squeak Here, and a Squeak Squeak there – Hand Wash making in COVID19

It wasn’t unnatural for some of my neighbours to come to my door to check if there were rats in the house in the early days of lockdown.  Can’t blame them if they heard squeaks for most part, not from faulty doors and such but from rigorous swabbing of floors, windows and doors with homemade hand wash in COVID 19.  They hadn’t a clue about my experiments with making liquid hand soap in lockdown until I proudly displayed my hand wash soap making ingredients.

The benefit of the DIY liquid hand soap was twofold, getting cleaner and hopefully virus-free floors.  And finding lost treasures in the form of valuable trinkets that remained under the couch during the MAIDen days (I mean the pre lockdown maid cleaning days).

With easy ways to make liquid hand soap at home, and economical ones too, it was with gusto that I went about my cleaning sprees.  Armed with my custom made liquid soap I cleaned the surfaces till they squeaked and smiled back at my pleased eye.  It didn’t take long to get into the cleaning rhythm, right down to the garbage disposal circle which involved daily bin scrubbing with homemade soap in lockdown.  

One of the particular beneficiaries of this cleaning drive with DIY homemade liquid hand soap was my much-used gas stove.  The stove looked brand new with the constant and rigorous rub-a-dub-a-dub with easy homemade hand wash.  It practically “gleamed with delight“, as though smiling at me as if I’d “taken a shine on it“.

I even managed to dust off my husband from deep slumber, with pillows, sheets and all when it was time for the bed linen to get a dose of cleaning.  Yes, you guessed right – I shampooed the comforters too, with  homemade soap in lockdown. After all, there was enough homemade soap with kids foaming and splashing around the lather.

Learning to live with the new normal could’ve been challenging to most but when one is enterprising and curious to upskill, there are ideas that emerge and avenues to make those ideas work in the form of hand wash making experiments.  How to make liquid handwash naturally was among those lockdown experiments.

Shopping also held a new meaning in the new normal.  While previously shopping was about garments, footwear, cosmetics, home furnishings, the new normal list sports assorted masks, sanitisers, disinfectants, scouring liquids, detergents and soap making ingredients.  

If you think that homemade liquid hand wash recipes marks the end of my easy homemade hand wash making experiments and homemade soap in lockdown, think again.  I have a strong notion that the liquid soap making will progress to shower gel and custom made shampoo experimenting as well.  

 

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About Author

Carmelita is an Economics major and is employed with a private sector bank. She holds a diploma in journalism, but that's not the reason for her creative writing skills exhibited in a few freelancing feature writing assignments with a leading daily and also her blog. Her blog falls under the Top 25 of the Best Mumbai Blogs to Follow, by Feedspot.com ranking. She has an eye for offbeat travel, having visited seven continents and seeing more than what meets the average eye. Though not a cook per se, her tips on smart cooking are a thing to reckon in her food and cocktail recipes. As if this is not enough, she dabbles now and then in studio singing assignments which have gained her a sizeable fan following. That she is an avid reader is but natural, with a bent for literary classics which in turn have lent its influence in her blog writing panache.

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4 Comments

  1. Frankie Xavier Ferrao on

    To make soap we need soap…..
    Great creative tips, Mogal LITA. You are a breath of fresh air!
    Now I’m going to try making the soap and go play outside the whole day till I turn brown and wash myself with one of those until I turn white, literally. I feel fresh reading this already.

    Reply
    • Carmelita Fernandes on

      If you read the article well, you will note that you need “soap base” which is available at some stores, but if you can’t find any … go ahead and use old soaps that you would otherwise discard/waste.
      The whole idea is about “customising” your soap with organic products vs. making do with commercial ones that could have harmful ingredients that are harsh on the skin.
      Soap making also offers a creative and refreshing pursuit when you would otherwise sit gaping in front of a TV watching a “soap opera” ha ha ha ha! Pun intended.
      And yes, soap does go into handwash which was in short supply during the COVID days if you remember – so, Using old soaps won’t hurt. And, if you can find it, feel free to use “soap base” which is the primary ingredient of handwash or soap bars.
      As far as getting white goes, don’t know what your Mama taught you, but I use soap to get clean and not to get white. For getting white, use bleach.

      Reply
  2. Anita on

    Thanks for the recipe of handwash. Finally took it to make this home made hand wash and followed your recipe
    Nothing could go wrong. Perfect texture, colour and fragrance

    Reply

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