Homemade Soaps & Cleaners

Why Make Your Own?

Walk down the cleaning aisle at any grocery store and you’ll find dozens of products with ingredient lists that read like a chemistry exam. Most of them are 90% water, a surfactant, a fragrance, a dye, and a marketing budget. You’re paying for the bottle and the brand.

The recipes in this collection use about 10 bulk ingredients that you can buy once and use to make virtually every soap, detergent, and cleaner in your house. The cost per batch is a fraction of what you’d pay at the store, you control exactly what goes into each product, and you stop filling your cabinets (and landfills) with single-purpose plastic bottles.

The Bulk Ingredient List

These are the core staples. Most recipes use 3–5 of them.

Ingredient	What It Does	Where to Buy
Liquid castile soap (unscented)	Base surfactant — the thing that actually cleans	Dr. Bronner’s in bulk, or any unscented castile
Washing soda (sodium carbonate)	Heavy-duty degreaser and water softener	Arm & Hammer in the laundry aisle, or make from baking soda
Baking soda (sodium bicarbonate)	Mild abrasive, deodorizer, gentle cleaner	Anywhere — buy the big bag from a warehouse store
White distilled vinegar	Dissolves mineral deposits, deodorizes, conditions	Bulk at any grocery — get the gallon jugs
Coconut oil	Moisturizer, adds lather to soap recipes	Refined (no coconut scent) or virgin for fragrance
Citric acid	Descaler, preservative, adds fizz to cleaning tabs	Bulk online or in canning supplies
Vegetable glycerin	Humectant — keeps skin soft, prevents soap from drying out	Health food stores or bulk online
Coarse salt (kosher or sea salt)	Thickener for liquid soaps, abrasive for scrubs	Buy the big box
Borax (sodium tetraborate)	Laundry booster, hard water helper	20 Mule Team in the laundry aisle
Aloe vera gel	Soothing base for face and skin products	Grow your own or buy pure (no added color)

Estimated startup cost: $40–60 for everything, which will make dozens of batches across all recipes.

Make Your Own Washing Soda

If you can’t find washing soda locally, you can make it from baking soda. Spread baking soda on a baking sheet and bake at 400°F (200°C) for about an hour, stirring halfway through. The baking soda loses CO₂ and water, converting to sodium carbonate. You’ll notice it becomes grainier and less powdery. Store in an airtight container — it absorbs moisture from the air.

Natural Fragrances You Can Grow

Instead of buying essential oils (which are heavily processed and often adulterated), consider growing your own fragrance plants. You can make herbal infusions by steeping fresh or dried herbs in hot water (for water-based recipes) or in a carrier oil like olive or coconut oil (for soap recipes). A strong infusion works as a direct substitute anywhere a recipe calls for essential oil drops.

How to Make Herbal Infusions

Water infusion (for cleaners and rinses): Pack a jar with fresh herbs, cover with boiling water, steep until cool, strain. Use within a week or freeze in ice cube trays.

Oil infusion (for soaps and skin care): Fill a jar halfway with dried herbs, cover with carrier oil, seal, and let sit in a warm spot for 2–4 weeks, shaking occasionally. Strain through cheesecloth. Keeps for months.

Recommended Plants (Ohio-Hardy)

Plant	Scent Profile	Best For	Growing Notes
Lavender	Floral, calming	Everything — the universal fragrance	Full sun, well-drained soil. Hardy in Zone 6
Rosemary	Clean, herbaceous	Dish soap, surface cleaners	Perennial in mild winters, bring pots inside
Peppermint	Cool, refreshing	Body wash, shampoo, floor cleaner	Spreads aggressively — grow in containers
Spearmint	Softer mint	Gentler alternative to peppermint	Same as peppermint — contain it
Lemon balm	Light citrus	Hand soap, all-purpose cleaner	Easy to grow, self-seeds freely
Chamomile	Gentle, apple-like	Face wash, delicate laundry, baby products	German chamomile is annual, Roman is perennial
Thyme	Earthy, warm	Household cleaners (naturally antibacterial)	Drought-tolerant, loves poor soil
Lemon verbena	Strong lemon	Kitchen cleaners, dish soap	Tender perennial — overwinter indoors in Ohio
Rose	Classic floral	Hand soap, body wash, fabric softener	Rugosa roses are hardiest and most fragrant
Sage	Savory, grounding	Bathroom cleaner, laundry	Easy perennial, harvest before flowering

Tip: If you want essential oils for convenience or stronger scent, lavender, tea tree, and lemon are the most versatile three to keep on hand. A few drops go a long way.

Key Chemistry — Read This Before You Start

These five rules will save you from ruined batches and wasted ingredients. Every recipe in this collection is built around this chemistry.

Never mix vinegar and castile soap

This is the number one mistake people make with homemade cleaners. Castile soap is a base (alkaline). Vinegar is an acid. Mix them and the vinegar undoes the soap-making process — you get a greasy, curdled mess that cleans nothing. Use them in separate bottles or separate steps (clean with soap first, rinse, then follow with vinegar). The recipes in this collection are designed to keep them apart.

Washing soda ≠ baking soda

They sound similar but they are dramatically different. Baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) has a pH of about 8 — mildly alkaline, good for deodorizing and gentle scrubbing. Washing soda (sodium carbonate) has a pH of about 11 — roughly 1,000 times more alkaline, and a serious degreaser and water softener. They are not interchangeable. Using baking soda where a recipe calls for washing soda will give you weak results. Using washing soda where a recipe calls for baking soda can damage delicate fabrics and irritate skin.

If you can’t find washing soda: spread baking soda on a baking sheet and bake at 400°F for 1 hour. The heat drives off CO₂ and water, converting it to washing soda. You’ll notice it becomes grainier and more powdery.

Hydrogen peroxide degrades in light

Hydrogen peroxide breaks down into water and oxygen when exposed to light — that’s why it comes in brown bottles. Any recipe using peroxide (stain pre-treat, bathroom scrub) should be stored in opaque or dark-colored containers. A batch stored in a clear spray bottle on a sunny windowsill will lose its cleaning power within days. Mix small batches and use them relatively quickly.

Citric acid and washing soda neutralize each other

Citric acid is an acid. Washing soda is a base. Mix them together and they cancel each other out — neither one does its job. This is why the dishwasher detergent recipe stores them separately and loads them into different compartments. Same principle applies anywhere both appear: use them in separate steps, never in the same container.

91% rubbing alcohol for sanitizer, 70% for everything else

The hand sanitizer recipe requires 91% or higher isopropyl alcohol because mixing it 2:1 with aloe vera gel brings the final concentration to ~60% — the CDC’s minimum for effective germ-killing. Starting with 70% alcohol would dilute below that threshold and produce a gel that smells clean but doesn’t actually sanitize. For all other uses (glass cleaner, surface disinfecting), 70% is preferred — the higher water content actually helps it dissolve dirt better.

General Tips

• Label everything. Date it too. Homemade products don’t have preservatives, so shelf life matters.
• Start with small batches. Dial in the recipe before making a gallon.
• Reuse containers. Old pump bottles, spray bottles, and mason jars all work.
• Hard water matters. If you have hard water, you may need to increase washing soda or add a bit more vinegar to rinse recipes. Consider a water test if results seem off.