DIY Body Wash…Fail?
A few weeks ago, we stayed at a friend’s apartment and he had this amazing tobacco and caramel shower gel from Soapology. Somehow, I thought I could recreate it by making homemade shower gel and adding in tobacco essential oil. Scouring through my Pinterest board and Google resulted in a bunch of results, so I gathered my supplies and went to work.
Basically, you boil a gallon of water (per the first link), and then add 1 8 oz bar of soap (grated) and 2 tablespoons glycerine and let it dissolve. Remove the pan, cover and let sit overnight. I ended up using 2 bars of the Kirk’s Original Coco Castille Soap to equal the 8 ounces and my food processesor to grate the soap. Followed instructions, but added the essential oil in towards the end and hoped for the best!
SUPPLIES:
- 3 bars castille soap: $7.98 (Kirk’s Original Coco Castille Bar Soap, 4 oz)
- 1 gallon distilled water: $1
- Tobacco essential oil: $3.62
- Vegetable glycerine: $8.17 (16 ounces and you only use 2 tablespoons, so about $0.50)
TOTAL: $13 for over a gallon of body wash
The next day, the body wash was…liquid. It did not solidify. I scratched my head and decided to reboil the mixture and add the third bar of soap. Covered it up and waited another night. Woke up and it was still liquid and didn’t really smell of the tobacco oil. Decided that it wasn’t a complete failure as I essentially made over a gallon of liquid Dr. Broomers. Poured some into an old shampoo bottle and have been using it with a shower scrub. It still works!
After a couple of days out of the house, I came home to find the gallon jug somewhat solidified! Did it just get too cold and melded together? The consistency is less pure liquid, but we’ll see what happens when we turn the heat up. UPDATE: the big jug is still pretty solid, but the soap in the bathroom is very liquid-y.
Would I do this again? Maybe if I found a better formula. Maybe I was expecting too much. Perhaps Rebecca’s soap had more moisturizing agents in them that made her recipe thicken up. I don’t know! In the meantime, we (and Penny) are going to be very clean.
I love making that kind if stuff, especially in the winter! My best success was lotion and lip balm, both of which I liked better than any store-bought ones. I keep a crappy cuisinart on hand for non-edibles because I had a hard time cleaning it well.
What will you try next??
Yeah, I think lotion and lip balm are fun – I’ve done lip balm before with good results! We just inherited a crappy food processor, so maybe I’ll try to do more. Do you have recipes you recommend? I’ll try em!
I had no idea there was tobacco EO. Does it smell smokey or earthy?
Well, sort of hard to say. We used a really nice tobacco and caramel scented body wash at a friend’s place which, in combination with a tobacco aftershave I have, was the inspiration for buying this essential oil. In my opinion, the oil we got smelled a bit generically sweet. Not sure whether that was just the place we ordered from or whether tobacco essential oil smells different than other “tobacco” scents that are used in other manly-smelling products.