The Sensible Mom

DIY Project: Homemade Hand Soap

October 29, 2019 by Sandra 37 Comments

I accomplished February’s DIY project right around the end of last month. I made homemade hand soap. One gallon, all for around $5.00. That’s hard to beat, especially when the hand soap is made with organic soap.

I used Dr. Bonner’s Peppermint Bar soap made with organic oils. I purchased it from Traders Joes for less than $3.50.

This recipe was SO easy to pull off. You essentially shred a bar of soap, put it in a large pot, add one gallon of water plus 2 Tablespoons of glycerin and cook. While it cooks, you can enjoy the fragrant aroma coming from your kitchen. Our’s smelled like peppermint. Mmmm….

When the soap dissolves, you simply turn off the heat, then wait about 10 hours until the consistency changes to that of liquid hand soap. Here’s what our soap looked like right after I put it on the stove.

After reading the comments on the website where I found the recipe and seeing how my hand soap wasn’t looking like soap in the first few hours, I wondered if this little DIY project was going to turn out well.

But it did turn out well. Very well. I ended up with a whole gallon of high quality liquid hand soap that doesn’t have the chemicals and dyes you might find in other hand soaps. I think the reason is that I started with a high quality bar of soap. This really seems to make a difference, so if you were thinking about making hand soap for your family, too, I’d definitely be sure to make it with a high quality bar of soap. 🙂

Here’s the recipe:

DIY Homemade Liquid Hand Soap

Ingredients

1 High Quality Bar of Soap (Preferably Dr. Bonner's)
1 Gallon Water
2 Tbs + 1-2 Tsp Glycerin

Instructions

Grate bar of soap and put it into a large pan on the stove
Add water and glycerin and cook on medium heat
Stir ingredients and cook until soap completely dissolves
Once the soap dissolves, turn off heat and allow hand soap to cool on stove and set to the consistency of hand soap (about 10 hours)
Transfer to containers - you may need a funnel for this part

https://thesensiblemom.com/2019/10/februarys-diy-project-homemade-hand-soap/

Here’s a video tutorial I created for how to make homemade hand soap:

This month’s DIY project is homemade face wash! Looking forward to it!

DIY: Baby Wipes

October 28, 2019 by Sandra 29 Comments

homemade diy baby wipes

Homemade baby wipes. I never would have thought of making homemade baby wipes for my firstborn, twelve years ago.

It has taken me 12 years and 5 children to finally make homemade baby wipes.

And it was so easy. A 9 yr. old can do it. (except for the part where you need a very sharp knife to cut the roll of paper towels in half – do not let your 9 yr. old do that :-))

homemade baby wipes

Here’s how we made our baby wipes:

DIY Homemade Baby Wipes

Ingredients

1 Roll of high-quality paper towels (cut in half)
2.5 Cups of water (1 1/4 cup per half-roll of paper towels)
2 Tablespoons of baby wash (1 Tbs. per half-roll of paper towels)
2 Tablespoons of olive oil (1 Tbs. per half-roll of paper towels)
1-2 Containers to store baby wipes

Instructions

In a small bowl, mix together 1 1/4 cups of water, 1 tbs. of baby wash, and 1 tbs. of olive oil and set aside
Place 1 half-roll of paper towels in the container you will be using to store your baby wipes, then pour the mixture you set aside over the top of the paper towels
Place the lid on the container and let the baby wipes sit covered for 10 minutes
After 10 minutes are up, flip the container with the wipes over and let it sit another 10 minutes
When the second 10 minute chunk of time is up, open the container, and remove the cardboard center - it should come out easily and your wipes will now be ready to pull through the center
Repeat these steps with the second half-roll of paper towels
Store in covered containers and pull the wipes through the center/middle of the paper towel rolls to use

https://thesensiblemom.com/2019/10/diy-baby-wipes/

Here’s what our finished baby wipes looked like in the container:

The picture only shows one half-roll, but we ended up storing both half-rolls in the container pictured. They fit snugly together.

How do we like our homemade baby wipes?

They’re great. They get the job done, and they’re not full of chemicals, which is the best part. We’ve been using the wipes for about 1.5 weeks, and they’ve stayed moist like the store bought baby wipes. No drying out.

Overall, a big thumbs-up! And we will be making these again.

Side notes:

You don’t have to store the baby wipes in plastic containers. Large plastic bags would work great, too. In fact, storing them in plastic bags would make carrying the wipes around in a diaper bag a lot easier.
We used cold-pressed olive oil, but you can also use baby oil.
We used Weleda Baby Calendula Shampoo & Body Wash to make our wipes. It’s free of synthetic fragrances, and it was on clearance at Publix.

Have you ever made homemade baby wipes? Have you made any DIY projects lately?

See more of my DIY projects.

DIY: Homemade Deodorant

October 25, 2019 by Sandra 34 Comments

This year my goal is to try more DIY projects than I have in the past.

So far, I’ve made homemade hand soap, which was a huge success. Since we made our first batch in February, we’ve kept using it and continue to make more when we start to run low. We haven’t purchased a single bottle of store bought hand soap since we started using our DIY version, so I definitely consider the hand soap a success.

The homemade hand soap was February’s DIY project. I have yet to post on March’s project, but it was a flop for me. I’m planning on posting about that soon.

April’s project was homemade deodorant (recipe from Green Your Way), and this is what I’m going to talk about today. Our homemade deodorant was…..a smashing success!

The recipe is so simple, yet effective (and you know we need ‘effective’ when it comes to deodorants :-)). I’ve been using the deodorant for about a month now, and I love it. I honestly can see this homemade recipe replacing our store bought deodorants.

Ruben and I have been using Tom’s of Maine deodorant and Crystal for our store bought versions, because both the Tom’s of Maine & Crystal deodorants are aluminum-free, which is important to us for health reasons. Aluminum in deodorant has been linked to cancer. Yikes.

And while we like both the Tom’s of Maine & Crystal deodorants….we are not truly 100% satisfied with either brand.

Enter the homemade version.

I love it.

Plus, it’s so easy to make, a 9yr. old can do it. Breanna, our 9yr. old daughter, made the deodorant for us while I supervised. She likes creating things in the kitchen, whether it’s a yummy new recipe or a DIY project, she’s our girl!

Plus, it counts for her school time. Bonus for her.

Here’s the recipe:

DIY Homemade Deodorant

Ingredients

1/4 cup baking soda
1/4 cup corn starch
5 tablespoons coconut oil

Instructions

Combine the baking soda and cornstarch in a bowl. Then mix in the coconut oil. Transfer deodorant to an airtight container.
To use, put a little deodorant on finger tips and apply.

https://thesensiblemom.com/2019/10/diy-homemade-deodorant/

Here’s what the finished product looked like for us:

The deodorant in the container I ended up storing it in:

Have you tried any DIY projects lately?

Side note:

I haven’t any problems storing the deodorant in this Georgia heat….meaning that my deodorant, which is stored on our bathroom counter in our sometimes very HOT upstairs living area, hasn’t liquified (since it’s made out of coconut oil). But if you do find this is a problem for you, just try to store it in a cooler area.

Update: I created a How To Make Homemade Deodorant Video Tutorial for you as well.

DIY: Homemade Air Freshener

October 24, 2019 by Sandra 9 Comments

I’m sensitive to smells, and I definitely lean toward more mild odors when it comes to anything that we put in the air of our home or even on our bodies.

I…don’t wear perfume, and I don’t buy air fresheners for our home because of the bad-for-you chemicals in them.

So naturally when my husband wanted to find a way to freshener the air in our home, we talked about finding a way to do it without buying the spray air fresheners from the store.

He did some research, and he came to me with the idea of using baking soda, some of our essential oil, and a jar with holes at the top.

It made sense. The baking soda removes odors. The essential oil gives off a lovely fragrance. The jar with holes at the top is a great container as it allows our homemade air freshener to remove the bad odors from our home while replacing them with a lovely lavender smell.

He was able to find a cheese shaker (our jar with holes in it) at the dollar store for $1. Yay! That ended up being the perfect container for our homemade air freshener.

We added 1/2 cup of baking soda + 8 drops of lavender essential oil, gave it a stir, and it works. 🙂

After we tried out one, we ended up making 2 more for a total of 3 of these homemade air fresheners for our home. We also let the kids know what they were, so they wouldn’t be curious. So far so good, as we have a very curious 3 year old son.

Here’s the super simple recipe:

Homemade Air Freshener

Ingredients:

1/2 cup baking soda

8 drops essential oil (we used lavender, but you could also use rose, peppermint, vanilla, or whatever you have on hand)

jar with holes at the top

Directions:

Add the baking soda and essential oil to the jar and stir. Cover with a lid that has holes in it. Place in an area of your home that is out of the way of small children and pets.

Enjoy!

Have you ever made your own homemade air freshener? Do you have a natural method to get rid of odors in your home?

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