Make your own foaming soap for pennies!

Foaming soap...awesome stuff, but too expensive. Foaming soap has been proven to be more effective for hand washing, as it covers more surface area of the hand, increasing the likelihood that one will wash more of the hand vs. liquid soap which just tends to get localized to one spot on the hand...unless you are just a super hand washer! For kiddos, the foaming soap is fun, and also something that they are more eager to spread all over their hands. It's an instant gratification for them-it's foaming straight away, no need to rub to get foam like with traditional soaps.

Educational piece aside, frugal point now...Foam soap is expensive. If you get designed soaps, like Bath and Body works, you can easily pay $5 each. Foam soap from your every day brands run around $2. Call me cheap, but that's just too much money. I figure out how to make my own for pennies.Gather round as I'm about to enlighten you to the frugal side.

To start, this is what you'll need:

• A foaming pump bottle (I bought a foaming soap, happily used it knowing when it was all gone, I would make my own)
• Any liquid soap-antibacterial soap that has the little beads in it, like the antibacterial soap from bath and body works, will NOT work
• Some water
• A happy helper to shake your bottle of soap

Step 1: Have an empty foaming bottle ready and some soap you'd like to use 

Notice the level on the softsoap bottle...compare it to the next picture

 Step 2: Fill the foaming bottle a bit...there is no real measure here, just eyeball it.

I used about a fourth of the bottle? It doesn't have to be an exact amount.

Step 3: Add warm water
Step 4: Have your happy helper shake a bit. Let it sit about 5 mins and shake again. And viola! You should have foaming soap!
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Proof that it foams and just isn't purple liquid!

Now for the frugal money lesson...*IF* I paid retail for the softsoap, it would have been around $1.50 If I had a foaming soap from fancy places, it would be around $5. I used about 1/4 of a bottle, making the cost of my refill 37 cents. But I know I got this particular bottle of soap on clearance, with a coupon for 25 cents. Now my refill has cost 6, yes s.i.x cents. :) Even if your refill was a full price refill, it is SO much cheaper, and more environmentally friendly to do it this way!

I plan on blogging about making your own cleaning products and laundry soaps. Let me know what else you'd like to learn how to make!