Foaming hand soap is a luxurious means to clean your hands. If you’re looking for an easy yet effective DIY foaming hand soap recipe, you’re in the right place! I’m going to show you how you can make one of the best homemade hand soaps with just 5 ingredients.
I’ve kept this recipe as close to the original Young Living Thieves® Foaming Hand Soap as possible. If you’ve been wanting to make your own Thieves® foaming hand soap, please try this recipe! I believe you’ll be thrilled with it.
This post contains affiliate links, which means if you make a purchase through these links, I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. Read my full disclosure policy here.
This hand soap recipe contains only natural ingredients. No chemicals, fillers, or other contaminants will touch your hands. You’ll also not flush commercial products down your drain. This recipe works for anyone looking for natural, inexpensive foaming hand soap.
Plus – you can add your own crafty touch by selecting different containers for your soap! This way, they’re dressed up to make that perfect homemade essential oils gift. I’ll show you my favorite tricks here, too. Let’s dive right in!
How to Make Foaming Hand Soap
Making foaming hand soap at home is one of the simplest, non-toxic DIY projects you will ever attempt. With the correct ingredients, it’s also a moisturizing soap.
Even if you’re a beginner in essential oils DIY, you can do it!
Here’s how:
- Order or recycle a foaming hand soap container (with pump).
- Boil water to use instead of having to buy distilled water.
- Assemble the ingredients including essential oils.
- Blend everything together right inside the container.
- Shake well to combine; and before each use.
Your container will only have about this much “oily” ingredients. The rest will be water.
Foaming Hand Soap Recipe
You’ll need these 5 ingredients to make a luxurious DIY homemade foaming hand soap:
- Plastic soap dispensers (like these ones here)
- 2-3 Tbsp castile soap (liquid)
- 2 Tbsp Aloe vera gel
- 1 Tbsp Jojoba carrier oil or Vitamin E oil
- 12-15 drops Young Living Thieves® (or Alternative) essential oils blend such as Rocky Mountain Oils’ Immune Strength. If you have children in the house, used Plant Therapy’s KidSafe® Germ Destroyer blend.
- Distilled water or boiled tap water
The essential oils in this homemade hand soap will separate when left standing – that’s completely ok!
In your soap dispenser, add the ingredients in order of mention, and use distilled water at the end to fill up the jar. If you don’t have distilled water, boil tap water in a pot and let it cool off before use.
Once everything is in the bottle, give it a good shake to combine ingredients, and that’s it. Start enjoying your perfect homemade hand soap!
NOTE: As there are no emulsifiers in this blend, the essential oils will separate to the top of the soap when left standing. This doesn’t mean that anything is wrong with your mixture! It only means that you’ve used all-natural ingredients that behave in a natural way. Shake the soap container before use and all will be well. If you don’t like that process, you can try adding one of these natural emulsifiers here.
Should you have a foaming soap container that is different in size, try this nifty soap calculator to sort out your exact ingredient quantities.
Ingredients Explained
Castile Soap
Castile soap isn’t only a good soap for washing your body and hair as a part of an organic skin care routine. You can also do laundry with it, plus, it’s safe to use around children. Castile soap is also very popular among vegans and vegetarians since it’s plant-based. The castile soap in our foaming hand soap recipe will make the mixture seem cloudy. That’s totally normal and nothing to worry about.
Aloe Vera Gel
Aloe Vera is highly anti-inflammatory and contains antioxidants, enzymes, Vitamins A and C ¹. It helps moisturize the skin and prevents the deepening of wrinkles and fine lines. It is a great addition to this hand soap recipe and I wouldn’t omit it!
Jojoba Oil
Jojoba is actually a liquid wax rather than an oil. Because it is so much like to human sebum, it is considered one of the main natural treatments for dry and mature skin. Its waxy nature adds a protective layer that helps skin keep moisturized. Easily absorbed, it is safe for all skin types ².
Vitamin E Oil
Vitamin E nourishes the skin and acts as an antioxidant to help protect cells from damage caused by free radicals ³. It helps increase the skin’s natural nutrient levels. In this hand soap recipe, it softens and smoothes the skin.
Foaming Hand Soap Dispensers
Foaming soap dispensers work by mixing in a little quantity of air into the soap as it moves through the nozzle. Finding an appropriate foaming hand soap dispenser is a pretty effortless procedure. If you’re searching for a pretty foaming dispenser, you will find tons of great options on Amazon! If you like mason jar crafts around your home, I can also recommend these Mason Jar foaming soap toppers. They give your homemade soap a luxurious and crafty feel.
Dress It Up
There is definitely a trend towards more DIY gifts. Stun your giftees with this DIY mason jar version of the Young Living Thieves® Foaming Hand Soap.
The mason jar container adds that special gifty look to your homemade hand soap.
Follow the recipe above and mix all ingredients into a 3.5″ wide glass mason jar. Stay on the larger side of ingredient quantities as the soap may come out too watery otherwise. The mason jars hold more ounces of liquid than plastic containers.
If you order these foaming hand soap mason jar toppers here, they come included with a set of 8 stickers. The labels are perfect to use for your gifts! I ordered that exact 2-pack of mason jar toppers, plus this 4-pack of the plastic containers to make some extras to use in my house.
With the 8 labels included in the mason jar pack, I had enough pretty sticker labels to make a total of 6 amazing-looking gift soaps.
Why Homemade Hand Soap?
Are you wondering why you should be making homemade hand soap? Or at least purchase a more natural, pure soap?
It can be challenging to find soap products that will cleanse your skin without damaging it. A DIY soap alternative is actually a very smart choice. Here’s why:
- Purchasing foaming hand soaps can get expensive. The price of each item you buy at the store includes costs for the container, production, and marketing of selling the branded item. Making your own foaming hand soap is an easy, frugal and healthful option for the soap needs of your household.
- With less commercial soaps soaps getting rinsed down the drain, less toxins ends up in our natural surroundings.
- This homemade hand soap is really enjoyable and simple to make.
- If you’re skeptical whether it will clean your hands as well as commercial soap – I dare you to try it out! Your hands will feel moisturized and well taken care-of after using this DIY foaming hand soap recipe! And it really does get the job of cleaning done!
- In regular soap, there are some chemicals that could hurt our skin, especially dry or sensitive skin. It’s great to know you’re using something all-natural that has no chemicals in it.
- If you don’t like foaming soap, you can also make homemade soap bars. An example recipe would be this easy Cinnamon Oil soap.
Thieves Foaming Hand Soap Alternatives
Foaming Hand Soap with Immune Strength Blend from Rocky Mountain Oils
Just $10.95 Here
If you do prefer a brand name hand soap, take a look at the website of the company and register for money saving offers and coupons if available. It helps you to avoid the steep price tag.
As a good example, Rocky Mountain Oils sells a foaming hand soap made with their Immune Strength essential oil blend. It is one of the very closely matched alternatives to Young Living Thieves® blend.
The soap sells for just $10.95 on RockyMountainOils.com for a 8 fl oz size.
Final Thoughts
It can be intimidating to identify chemicals and replace them with green alternatives. Starting with replacing your hand soaps may be a small and easy first step. Making your own foaming hand soap isn’t complicated.
If you’re interested in more natural cleaning, read these tips on how to clean with essential oils.
Of you could move on to trying my DIY hand sanitizer recipe.
References
¹ Baylor College of Medicine: Using Aloe Vera has multiple benefits
² Neal’s Yard Remedies: Essential Oils: All-natural remedies and recipes for your mind, body, and home.
³ National Institutes of Health: Vitamin E Fact Sheet for Consumers
ODAY MAHDI
Hi
What is the amount of distilled water that should be added to the mentioned ingredients of FOAMING HAND SOAP RECIPE?
Yvonne
Below her notes Emma does suggest we use the nifty soap calculator to figure out correct amounts of ingredients for
our containers if they are different sized than what she made. Her bottles are 10 ounce bottles if she is using the ones the suggested she uses. (10 ounces are a little more than a cup which is 8 ounces)
Hoping this helps!
yvonne
Janet
Hi,
I made this soap yesterday and it is amazing! Thank you for sharing! I do have the same question asked previously (by Kristian) about the emulsifier you recommend and how much/how to add it.
Thanks!
Kristian
Hi!
Just wanted to get a little more information on the emulsifiers. Which would you recommend and in what quantities to stop the separation from happening?
Thanks,
Kristian
Dawn Stanislawski
I know this may sound like a silly question, but if I use a 12oz soap dispenser – should I use more of the ingredients? Also, do you have an idea of how much lecithin I would start with? Thank you!