Homemade Dish Soap, that works!

Who wants to make your own simple yet effective Homemade Dish Soap, raise your hand! As it turns out, I do. And if you do as well, come and take a look at how easy this is to make and use.

Hmmm, washing dishes shouldn't be a problem.

One day while we still lived in Montana I was at the sink washing up the pots and pans after the dishwasher had been loaded. And I noticed that I had seemed to develop a little dry cough every time I stood at the sink and washed dishes after dinner. At first, I thought it was simply a dry throat cough because I am horrible about drinking enough water throughout the day. But as time went on, and the dishwashing continued, so did the cough. Adding a glass of water to my routine, did not do the trick to rid me of that cough.

Environmentally safe, does not mean harsh chemical free.

When my daughter heard me say, "for some reason, I always cough when washing dishes after dinner" she replied, " I don't understand, this is an environmentally friendly dish soap". But when the bottle ran out, it was not longer available to purchase and use, my cough went away. As it turns out, even those products labeled as safe for the environment can have harsh chemicals to be concerned about, personally. And to clarify, I do not have respiratory health concerns nor am I compromised in my lungs or breathing.

The search began...

So the search was on to find and make a suitable Homemade Dish Soap that in fact cleaned not only your dishes, but also the greasy pots and pans left to be washed after the dishwasher is loaded! I knew it could be done, even if I did not know how to do it! You see we have been making our own Powdered Laundry Soap for years and years. Using simple ingredients we get clean laundry! So by even a small stretch of the imagination, I knew it could also be done, for dishes!

Lots of articles later...

And it is. I must have read about 20 articles on making dish soap. And as luck would have it, right about the time I was going to throw in the towel, I found an article from the Kitchn! They had tried a few different formulas and this was the one that worked! Sold me, immediately. The ingredients are simple, the mixing is easy and it cleans the dishes, there was nothing more to ask for...come and take a look. But wait, is it as good as a purchased dish soap? No, it is not. But what it is, is good for you (first), good for the environment, and it does get your dishes clean. Greasy pots and pans, take a little more effort, but I have been using this for over a year, and I have no complaints, and no dry cough.

The secret weapon is the spray bottle!

Oh and one last thing. Since the mixture is thin before mixing in the salt, I decided right away that we could have two Homemade Dish Soap products available for washing dishes! A spray-on cleaner for single wash items where you will not fill a sink with dishwater and a second bottle of thicker soap to squirt into the sink for the standard sudsy bath.

But upon using these methods I have learned a few tricks I will share with you now.

1. Do not fill a sink with hot water, a medium sized bowl or pan filled with hot water is better. This way you can dip your dishcloth into clean sudsy water as needed to wash the dishes, and the last dish washed will be washed with water just as clean as the first. A large sink of hot sudsy water gets dirty and dirtier as the washing continues.

2. Grease is the enemy of every dish soap, homemade or purchased. If after washing an item I do not feel it is clean enough, I give it a spritz from the spray bottle and finish the job! Works every time.

3. After using this for a year (or more, time does go fast!) I have learned that it does not dry out my hands, have a strong odor/fume when mixed with hot water and does clean the dished and the pots and pans with the added spritz. And I wash a lot of dished, we do not have a dish washer in our Tiny House and I still cook from scratch for three meals a day. Meaning, I do a lot of dishes!

Some additional thoughts on this project:

Salt does play a small role, but not for cleaning, it thickens the mixture to make it more like commercially made dish soap. But it is not necessary.

You do want to use distilled water (if on public water) so that any chemicals that may be present in your own community water will not change the chemistry of the mix. In the Tiny House, I skip the distilled water and we use water from our Berkey filter that sits in the kitchen.

And you will need to use a kosher-style salt with no additives. We use sea salt. In the past I used Himalayan Pink Salt, but found it does not dissolve.

The recipe below calls for small amounts, making it easy to fill a small bottle by the sink, or double the recipe if desired. UPDATE: do not make more than a double batch as this formula will separate upon standing for long periods of time.

Ingredients needed for this project:

distilled water or filtered water
white vinegar
Sal Suds
salt

You will also need the following:

measuring cups
measuring spoons
storage container with a tight-fitting lid
bamboo skewer
squeeze bottle for the sink, if desired
spray bottle for the sink, if desired

Now we are ready to begin!

Homemade Dish Soap

adapted from kitchn

UPDATED: 11.25.2023 after using for over a year!

1/2 c distilled water

1/2 c white vinegar

1/2 c Dr. Bonners Sal Suds

1-2 t salt, we use sea salt

Warm the distilled water in a microwave or on the stove. The easiest way is to pour the distilled water into an oversized glass measuring cup and microwave it until warm, but not hot!

Pour the water into your storage container, we used a quart canning jar.

Add the vinegar.

Add the Sal Suds, and stir gently. A bamboo skewer works great for this.

NOTE: At this point, you have a liquid cleaner that is perfect for a spray bottle, or you can continue on with adding salt and have a more traditional dish soap to use.

Add the salt, a teaspoon at a time stirring well to dissolve.

NOTE: I found the two teaspoons of salt made a good consistency for squirting out of a leftover soap or catsup squeeze bottle. Feel free to play around with the amount of salt that works best for your needs.

Pour the soap into a leftover squeeze bottle and you are ready to wash up some dishes!

UPDATE: For your convenience, a "copy and paste" version of Homemade Dish Soap has been included below.

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