{ Let me preface this by saying this project is the very reason why the blog is called the FORGETFUL wife and not the HAS HER STUFF TOGETHER wife. This is the kind of miss-adventure in domesticity that gave me the idea to start a blog in the first place.}

The Husband and I really don’t like to use bar soap (it gets funky and dry just sitting there in it’s sad little puddle of water on the side of the sink all day). We much prefer a nice liquid soap. Same goes for bath bar vs. body wash. For some reason, we acquired a very large collection of fancy bar soap over the last few years that never sees the light of day. Then one day I had an epiphany that there must be other bar soap haters like myself out there that have figured out a way to convert their unused bar soap into liquid soap. My hunch was right. I found several simple enough “recipes” for converting bar soap into liquid soap. The finished product turned out fine enough but the process was stressful to say the least.

My troubles started when I was getting my supplies together. Every store in Santa Monica was conveniently out of funnels and no one seemed to know what glycerin is, much less have it in stock. After several hours driving around every craft/home goods/pharmacy/grocery store in a 15 mile radius I found the glycerin at Michael’s and a funnel at Williams Sonoma. A plastic bottle with a hand pump was a whole other issue. I was finally able to convince a nice apothecary shop owner to sell me a few empty bottles and a hand pump, but I highly recommend re-using an empty liquid soap container if you happen to have one lying around.

This is an easy enough task, just be careful because the soap particles float up  and can end up going up your nose.

So this is where things get tricky. The soap mixture turned out very liquidy. Even after cooling it did not have the consistency of liquid soap. I thought about adding more soap flakes or more glycerin but after doing some research I found several people who encountered the same problem. Apparently the consistency of the liquid soap depends on what kind of soap is used. Luckily there is a quick fix. Just use a hand blender and give the mixture a couple of whirls on high-speed until you reach desired consistency. I had a perfectly thick and creamy soap within 45 seconds. This recipe makes about 5, 16oz bottles of liquid soap, so make sure you have a container to store it ready.

It’s also important to mention that my batch doesn’t actually lather. From what I understand that’s usually the case but you can put the soap in to a foaming soap dispenser which is supposed to work really well. Other than that my soap turned out great. You can download these vintage apothecary labels to print out and stick on to the bottle. Once all the kinks got worked out the project was actually really fun – let me know if you guys try this at home!