Soapy fun

Amy and I got kind of crafty yesterday. We saw on Pinterest how you can make your own liquid handsoap out of a bar of normal soap, water, and glycerin. 

I used this lemon verbena bar. It is strongly scented and smells soooo good. It makes me take long showers just so I can sniff it more. 

All you do is grate up the bar of soap with a cheese grater. It looks like Parmesan cheese in the bowl.  You add that to a gallon of water and warm them both up on the stove until the soap starts to melt in the water. Then you add two TBSP of glycerin to the mixture and stir over medium heat a little longer. Mine boiled over because I walked away, but it was a super easy mess to clean up (can soap be a mess?) and I don't think it affected the finished product. You leave it to cool overnight (10-12 hours) and then stir it again. Mine was a little thick, so I added some water and used my immersion blender to incorporate it and make the soap nice and smooth. 

I love it! I have over a gallon of soapy goodness that gets my hands clean and smells awesome. 

I needed somewhere to use the soap, so I refilled the softsoap dispenser in the kitchen, but for the bathroom, I made a new little soap jar. I used a salsa jar that I washed out and removed the label from. I poked a hole in the top of it using a screwdriver (I recommend doing it some other way-this was a little haphazard and scary) to accommodate the pump. 

I cut the pump off of an empty bottle of lotion because I liked the blue green color of it (see Rob, I CAN get rid of lotion bottles!)

I cut the bottle just below the threads for the lid and I poked that through the hole in the lid of the jar from the bottom, and then I screwed on the pump top on the outside of the lid. I cut down the little straw inside so it fit and viola! A trendy little mason jar soap dispenser. I added a ribbon to match the pump. Now it's sitting in the back bathroom just waiting for company with dirty little hands.

FYI: did you know that glycerin is bought in the pharmacy? Like, behind the counter? I asked the pharmacist for it, and then I couldn't resist, so I went back and asked what it was for medicinally and why it was behind the counter. Ahem...apparently glycerin is a powerful laxative. I guess it can clean you inside and out. HA!...........ew.