We are huge fans of foaming soap. Mainly because our sons are soap wasters. They can go through an entire bottle of soap in less than a week. We don’t buy the pre-filled foaming soap anymore. Foaming soap is easy to make and you will save money by making your own.

Supplies

• Castile Soap (or any liquid soap, fragrance-free)
• water
• lemon, lime and tea tree essential oils
• foaming soap pump

The key to making foaming soap is the pump. You can get foaming pumps at big box retailers or online. If can, also reuse a prefilled foaming pump container after it’s empty. Making your own foaming soap is significantly cheaper than buying refills or prefilled pumps.

Many people use way more soap than they need to wash their hands, especially kids. A 32 ounce bottle of Castile soap will last our family of four for a year. That’s with multiple daily hand washings by little boys.

In reality, you can use any type of liquid soap. We like Castile soap because it leaves less of a residue on your hands and surfaces. The essential oils used in the recipe are two-fold: they have disinfecting properties and a clean, smell fresh.

Step 1

Add the liquid soap to the bottle. You need to fill it ¼ of the way up the bottle. The foaming pump bottle we use has handy line indicators for the soap and water levels. Next add the essential oils. Essential oils are potent and a little goes a long way. We typically use 7 drops of the lime and lemon oils and only 3 drops of the tea tree. Tea tree oil is strong and has a piney aroma. It also has powerful antibacterial properties, which is why we add it to our soap.

Step 2

Add the water. Don’t fill the bottle all the way to the top. You need to leave a little bit of headspace for the pump. If you fill it all the way to the top, some of the soap mixture will spill out when you add the pump. Also, the pump will not have enough space to “foam” the soap.

Step 3

Put the pump on and give the bottle a gently swirl. Your soap is ready to use!