Homemade Liquid Dish Detergent
By Karina | June 18, 2008
Jenn and I have talked in the past about making homemade soap or detergent, and as I came to the end of my last bottle of Trader Joe’s liquid dish soap, I decided to give it a whirl. Turns out, though, that while there are lots of recipes for powdered dish detergent for machines on the internet there are just not a whole lot of LIQUID dish detergent suitable for hand washing your dishes. After extensive searching, though, I came across this one.
I ended up quartering the recipe. I made it with half of a bar of ancient Octagon soap that I’ve moved from apartment to apartment for at least 5 years. (Gramma always says to keep a bar of laundry soap around in case you run into a patch of poison ivy. The harsh soap cuts the oils that transport the poison ivy “itch,” and will minimize your reaction. And now you know!) It turns out that the Octagon soap was kind of dried out, but while it made some amazingly loud noises while I was grating it, it melted just fine. I was able to find the washing soda at the grocery in the laundry detergent aisle, and the other items I had on-hand. I also added some rosemary essential oil with the lemon to improve the scent.
I followed the directions closely, but here’s the exciting part: when I added the baking soda to the soap mixture it foamed all over the stove. Luckily I got the pan into the sink in time to avoid total catastrophe (and my stove has never been cleaner than after wiping all that soap mess off of it), but how weird, right? Maybe it was a reaction to the lemon juice, or maybe it’s because baking soda is amphoteric, and will react with both acids (the lemon juice) OR bases (the washing soda). I bet it was a reaction to the washing soda, because it’s a much stronger base than lemon juice is acidic.
After the exciting foaming reaction I left the soap out to cool, and it cooled off to be really foamy and kind of hard - it was waaaay too thick to squeeze out of my reused liquid detergent bottle - so I heated about a cup of water and mixed the warm water in as best as I could. It’s still really really thick, and I have to squeeze the bottle with both hands to get any soap out, but I don’t know if that’s because of the loss of mixture during the foaming or what. Next time I need to use a larger pot to avoid any foam-over.
All in all, I find that this recipe works really well to clean my dishes, but I just don’t like using it very much! It doesn’t foam or produce big bubbles at all, and I use a lot more than I did of the commercially prepared soap. (I mixed up the detergent in the beginning of May and I’ve gone through about 1/2 of it in 6 weeks.) And of course, there is that hard-to-squeeze thing. Most annoying, though, is that the soap is so hard that it won’t dissolve in water when I want to soak a pot. I have to get my whisk out and mix the soap into the water first before I fill the pot. Most of my dishes are done with the soap-on-sponge method, so it’ s not a problem I run into frequently, so I would like to be able to avoid the extra whisking step!
And of course I have some questions. Like, what the heck is Octagon soap made out of, anyway? I’m sure it’s not an eco-friendly detergent base, considering it’s made by chemical giant Colgate-Palmolive. I should probably start with a bar of happy castile soap, for example, from our friends Dr. Bronner’s. I know that that stuff will melt down but I wonder how that will affect the consistency? Also, where the heck does washing soda come from? Washing soda is sodium carbonate and according to wikipedia is produced by mining from alkaline salt flats in the USA, though it is also produced by the Solvay process outside of the USA (big geek heads up: I am familiar with the Solvay process because I used to work on the Onondaga Lake superfund site, where the Solvay process was heavily used and contributed to some of the area contamination.) The Solvay process also is used to produce baking soda, or sodium bicarbonate. According to this webpage washing soda is non-toxic and is a great grease cutter, so it’s probably the most active ingredient in this detergent.
I think I’m going to have to try again, but next time, I’ll use a different kind of soap, a larger pot, and maybe mix in more water right at the beginning to thin it out. I think I should also put the baking soda in first and THEN add the washing soda. Sometimes the order of mixing helps dilute any reaction you may encounter. I’ll be sure to let you know how it works out!
Image from flickr user anna banana via creative commons license.
Have you experimented with homemade detergents? What’s your favorite recipe?
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I have mixed baking soda and lemon and didn’t get fizz bomb - but when i mix it with ume vinegar it takes on a life of it’s own and makes me want to do a 2nd grade science project on erupting volcanoes :)
try that on the bottom of your oven-with some vinegar. If you let it set for a while, cleaning it will be effortless
How about using liquid Dr. Bronner’s - I used it camping and just a couple of drops would do a panful of dishes.
The bubbles from liquid dishwashing soap? I think we’ve been brainwashed into thinking they are necessary - I’m not sure they are because I cannot think how the bubbles contribute to the cleaning process.
Hey Bellen– I also use Dr. B’s while camping, but when I’ve tried it at home I’ve been a bit disappointed. It doesn’t really seem to cut grease all that well, at least in my experience.
I think you’re right about the bubbles and brainwashing– we’re used to it in shampoo, soaps, and toothpaste, and I think it’s all a scam.
The auromere toothpaste that I mentioned in a different post earlier today actually comes in a non-foaming variety to eliminate the sodium laurel sulfate: http://www.auromere.com/natural_toothpaste.html, suggesting that bubbles/suds are not necessary for the cleaning function. Admittedly, I do like suds and bubbles, though.
All this makes me think that you should be wearing safety goggles, missy! I may have some soap to give to you so you don’t have to buy any from that christmas I made shea butter soaps for my dad.
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Teehee, this is just about exactly one of the science experiments we just did with our 2nd grader…and I was surprised at the big reaction she got with lemon juice and baking soda. I don’t know how homemade my liquid dish soap is, but I use Dr. Bronner’s Sal Suds mixed with lots of water in an old Joy soap plastic bottle. The ratio is completely unscientific, like 1 part Sal Suds to 10 parts water. In other words, a little Sal Suds goes a long way. One bottle of Sal Suds lasts 6-9 months and we also use the stuff to clean lots of other things, too, like cars. Not countertops, tho, cuz you have to rinse (it’s sudsy after all) and I’m lazy.
Susan
The best grease-cutting soap I know of is made by my father as a by-product of bio-diesel production. It looks nasty, but it will clean anything and is def earth-friendly as it’s a bonus from recycling! Let me know if you want to know more :-)
i want to know more!! i’ve got a grease-monkey husband … will it work on his hands? ;)
that’s because it’s a byproduct of a lye reaction! it’s super duper soap
i also use the dr bonners sal suds though it does contain sodium laurel sulfates. i combine that with a very unscientific mixture of vinegar (for a clean shine), baking soda, borax and a dash of tea tree oil (my husband likes to leave raw chicken in the sink and i can’t brake him from it so the added anti bacterial is for that not because i’m a germ-aphobe). all of this creates a very thick gel like stuff that you have to cut with some warm water (so that you don’t have to use 2 hands to squeeze out ;) )
i’ll switch to a something that doesn’t contain sodium laurel sulfates after i’m done with the dr bonners but so far this works great.
It is the soda ash that is making your soap to thick. Try using only half next time. Good luck!
About the Octagon Soap - according to this site http://www.terryspharmacy.com/products/OctagonSoap/ it is a lye based soap, which is why it’s so great at cutting grease. Castille soap wouldn’t cut greases as well. According to Wikipedia, lye itself is not bad for the environment. So it’s probably a great soap all around.
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I’m wondering why we couldn’t just dissolve a soap bar in water. Do you really need all the other ingredients? I ask because I”m in the process of trying just that — bar soap dissolved in water — and wondering if there’s some reason this will not work right.
Beth
In all my research I saw a bunch of people who said things like: “this soap doesn’t work GREAT, so I keep a bar of soap at the kitchen soap for spot cleaning.”
I bet if you are using a washcloth or sponge you could just lather it up with the bar of soap and use it directly on each dish, instead of the traditional hot soapy water! Just like cleaning your body in the shower vs in the bubble bath (for a dorky early morning analogy).
You made a mistake by using baking soda instead of washing soda. Two different things. You want Arm and Hammer SUPER WASHING SODA available in the laundry aisle, not the baking aisle! :-)
Nope - the recipe I used called for both! Have you got another recipe that you would recommend?