DIY Body Wash

As I am completely broke (the title of my blog is no lie, folks!), I decided today to give a DIY Body Wash tutorial I found on Pinterest a try (you can see the original pin here.) This pin appealed to me primarily because of the low-cost nature of the project. For me, it cost $0. That's right, folks. No dinero. And no, I did not steal soap or anything of that nature. Some time ago, my mother gave me a few bars of Trader Joe's Oatmeal and Honey soap. Since it's super creamy and smells absolutely terrific, I decided that I would use it to attempt this DIY. (Note: I apologize for the quality of the pictures. I have to use my phone's camera, as I don't own one myself.)

So I got my soap.

 And my large pot, since I didn't know how much this would make, really. In retrospect, I could have used a smaller saucepan. However, my saucepan is very new, and this larger pot is very old, and I'd rather junk up my older pot than my newer one. Just saying.

Since I didn't feel like adding to my carpal tunnel issues with grating the bar of soap, I decided to carve it up with a bread knife. The added benefit to using a bread knife and sawing away at the soap was that it tended to flake on its own. I can't vouch for this working with any other brand of soap, but it worked for this one. I decided to use the whole bar, since I had saved a large, empty container that previously held Sunny-D to store this stuff in (I love me some Sunny-D.)

I then added my flaked/carved soap to my pot.

I went with more water versus less, as I read comments on the original pin that noted 2 cups made their DIY body wash way too thick. I always believe that the best defense is a good offense (I follow that policy with literally every aspect of my life. FTW!), so I did a preemptive strike and used 4 cups of water. (Note, if you're following along to try this on your own: I ended up adding another 2 cups later on. So, if you are using the same or similar soap, I recommend starting with 6 or even more. This stuff congeals like crazy pants). 

Next, you put the heat on medium and cook that stuff until all of the soap dissolves. Not all of mine did. It started looking like this: 

Gah! I had to repeatedly scrape and stir this mixture, alternating from medium to low heat. It never turned "milky," the way the post originally stated. However, I think this is because the original blogger used a fairly artificial soap and I used Trader Joe's straight-up organic stuff. When I turned off the stove, in exasperation (after the soap never fully dissolved), it started to thicken up the way the blogger said it would. Whoo! Then I realized that the blogger said it would take several hours and mine was taking only about 15 minutes. Woops. So I added 2 more cups of water and put the heat back on medium. I was determined to dissolve all of the soap this time. DISSOLVE, CURSE YOU.

Finally started looking milky-ish! 

Well, it didn't turn out too horribly, although it is thick as pea soup and keeps getting thicker. The recipe didn't make a whole lot, either. I just add some hot water when I need to and shake the heck out of the container in order to get it to cooperate with me. 

My impressions upon using it are...well...it works. I guess. It's incredibly congealed. Do yourself a favor if you try this and, after putting your soap into the pot you choose, FILL IT TO THE BRIM with water. But it does work rather well, though you need a LOT of it in order to cover your whole body. I have to admit that I prefer my trusty Suave body wash (cheap and best body wash I've tried yet) to this DIY beauty trick, but I'll use this until it's gone. Maybe this would work better with "normal" soap, instead of organic Trader Joe's. Perhaps I will try this again if I spot an Oil of Olay bar in Dollar Tree the next time I'm there.