This Homemade Lemon Hand Soap Smells Amazing And Keeps You Grime-Free

While there are many natural hand soaps out there to choose from, why not save money and make your own? Making soap at home is easier than you'd think; in fact, it's one of the easiest, most beginner-friendly DIY projects out there. Even if you're not very crafty, you can definitely tackle this homemade hand soap recipe. It's so simple because it doesn't require you to make anything from scratch. Instead, it uses pre-made liquid castile soap, as well as lemon essential oil and moisturizing vitamin E. By combining these ingredients with some water and pouring them into a hand soap dispenser, you'll have made your own delicious-smelling soap at home.

DIY hand soap is a great alternative to store-bought products. It cleans just as well as any soap, but by buying ingredients in bulk and mixing them yourself, you get a lot more soap for your money. If you don't already have the ingredients needed for this recipe, you can purchase 1 gallon of La Almona Pure Castile Liquid Soap on Amazon for $41, Mainstays' Pure Lemon Essential Oil from Walmart for under $5, and JĀSÖN's Vitamin E Moisturizing Oil from Amazon for under $11. You can also control exactly what your soap smells like. Here's how to make homemade lemon hand soap, how long it lasts, and how it compares to store-bought soap.

To begin, you'll need to gather your ingredients together, which include unscented liquid castile soap, water, vitamin E oil, lemon oil, a mixing cup or bowl, and an empty soap dispenser. First combine 1 cup of castile soap, ¼ cup of water, 1 tablespoon of vitamin E oil, and 10 to 20 drops of lemon essential oil depending on your preference (the more you add, the stronger the lemon smell will be). Mix all the ingredients and then pour them into your soap dispenser. It's as easy as that.

This recipe also works to create a foaming hand soap, which is basically just watered-down liquid hand soap. Pour a couple inches of soap mixture into the bottom of a foaming soap bottle, fill the rest of the container with water, and give it a good shake. You can also change up the scent of your soap by swapping the lemon oil for another oil, or mix multiple oils together. For instance, you could create a lemon eucalyptus smell by using 10 drops of lemon oil and 10 drops of eucalyptus oil. Other popular scent combinations include lemon and lavender or lemon and cedarwood.

This recipe uses liquid castile soap, which is made from plant and vegetable oils. Like all forms of soap, it cleanses by trapping germs and grime and lifting them away from the skin to be washed away with water. It also features vitamin E oil, an antioxidant and moisturizer. The brand of vitamin E oil used in the tutorial, JĀSÖN, contains other moisturizing oils like sunflower, avocado, and almond. Lastly, this recipe contains lemon oil, which aside from smelling lovely also has antimicrobial properties. Beyond hand soap, all of these ingredients have other DIY uses too — you can use lemon oil to clean your oven or clean your windows with a natural solution: castile soap.

DIY liquid hand soap is different from the liquid hand soap sold in stores. It's typically thinner and more watery, and it may provide less of a foamy lather. However, that doesn't mean it's less effective at cleaning. Also, it doesn't contain any preservatives, unlike store bought soaps. Castile soap can last for years, but once you add water, it goes bad more quickly. Some people say homemade liquid soap lasts for as little as a week outside of a fridge, while others say two to three weeks or around two months. If the soap's texture or smell changes (a dusty smell for example), it may have gone bad. You can store some in the fridge to lengthen its shelf life.