# homemade body wash?



## Tyler520 (Aug 12, 2011)

I'd like to try my hand at making homemade body wash.

Preferably, just a bare bones recipe that I can use as a base to spring board into experimenting with other additives (moisturizers, essential oils, etc)

the few recipes I've come across online have all kinds of different methods and extra additives, and I cannot seem to narrow them down to their basic essential recipes: some call for aloe, some call for liquid vitamins, some use milk, some use honey...and some just melt down a bar of soap and add glycerine to keep it in liquid form, which I think is silly and contradictory to the idea - I'd like to to this from absolute scratch.

Also, if anyone could maybe describe a few basic additives and what they're good for?


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## NostalgicGranny (Aug 22, 2007)

If you are doing it completely from scratch then you need to look up liquid soap making. It uses a different lye than bar soaps do.

Either way, liquid soap or melted bar of soap it would need a preservative. 
Melting down a bar of soap yields a slimy snot like consistency that we call snot soap.


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## Daydreamer7102 (Mar 23, 2012)

Find a soap calculator online and make the recipe however you want it. I've done plain coconut oil liquid soap and plain olive oil liquid soap. Familiarize yourself with the calculator, watch some youtube videos. Remember to set the calculator to KOH (potassium hydroxide) for the lye.


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## Maura (Jun 6, 2004)

You can also add an essential oil that inhibits hardening to your hard bar recipe. When the soap refuses to harden, you mix it 1cup water to 1 ounce soap and melt in saucepan. Very nice liquid soap. How do I know this? You know the answer.

The e.o. was ylang ylang.


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## NostalgicGranny (Aug 22, 2007)

Anytime you add water you need a preservative or it has to be kept in the fridge. The bacteria, yeasts, and fungus's are there long long before you can see them with the naked eye or smell them.


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