9 Homemade Foaming Hand Soap Recipes (Easy)

If you can’t find hand soap, there are ways to DIY moisturizing foaming hand soaps at home using materials that you may already have.

In this post, I show you a few easy recipes to make hand soaps with liquid castile soap, thieves cleaner, essential oils and bar soap.

Homemade Foaming Hand Soap with Castile Soap

If you want to go natural, using castile soap to make hand soap is a great choice. Castile soap is a natural vegetable-based soap that is free of synthetic ingredients, animal fats. It is non-toxic and biodegradable. 

Making Hand Soap with Dr. Bronner’s Castile Soap is a popular choice. 

Here’s How to Make Hand Soap Using Liquid Castile: 

1. Using a small foam soap dispenser, fill ¼ of it with castile soap.
2. Add 2 Tablespoons of Almond Oil. (Helps to treat dry skin) 
3. Add 10 drops of essential oil of your choice. (lavender oil or tea tree oil works best)
4. Fill the rest of the bottle with distilled water.
5. Shake to mix everything together.

Homemade Foaming Hand Soap With Glycerin

If you’ve got a bottle of glycerin at home, you can use it to make hand soap. Studies show that glycerin have bactericidal functions (capable of killing bacteria).

Here’s How to Make Hand Soap Using Glycerin:

1. Using a small foam soap dispenser, fill ¼ of it with castile soap.
2. Add 1 Tablespoon of vegetable glycerin.
3. Add 10 drops of essential oil of your choice. (lavender oil or tea tree oil works best)
4. Fill the rest of the bottle with distilled water.
5. Shake to mix everything together.

How to Make Hand Soap With Thieves Cleaner

 Thieves Household Cleaner is a concentrated cleaner for all-purpose use. It is formulated with 100% plant and mineral-based ingredients. It is biodegradable and passes EPA standards.

Here’s How to Make Hand Soap With Thieves Cleaner:

1. Using a small foam soap dispenser, fill ¼ of it with castile soap.
2. Add 1 Teaspoon of Vitamin E oil*. 
3. Add 10 drops of essential oil of your choice. (lavender oil or tea tree oil works best)
4. Add 1 capful of Thieves Household Cleaner
5. Fill the rest of the bottle with distilled water.
6. Shake to mix everything together.

*Vitamin E is used to help moisturize your skin. It can also help to treat dry and flaking skin. 

Homemade Foaming Hand Soap with Bar Soap and Coconut Oil

If you want to make homemade liquid hand soap without castile soap, you can try to make hand soap with bar soap instead.  This recipe also uses coconut oil. The fatty acids in coconut oil possess antimicrobial properties that can help protect the skin from harmful bacteria. 

Here’s How to Make Hand Soap With Coconut Oil and Bar Soap:

1. Grate a bar of soap into a mixing bowl. Grate until you have around 2 oz of shaved soap. 
2. Add 1 Tablespoon of coconut oil.
3. Add 4 cups of boiling water (be careful not to burn yourself)
4. Mix everything together until the grated soap is melted. Use a whisk for fast results. 
5. Wait until the liquid is cool to the touch
6. Pour into a small foam soap dispenser (use a funnel). 

Foaming Hand Soap Recipe With Essential Oils

Using essential oils in your hand soaps is great for people with sensitive skin or those who want to go all-natural. Studies have shown that certain essential oils can kill bacteria making them an ideal choice for using in your soaps. 

This recipe also uses witch hazel. Witch hazel can kill bacteria and some studies show the tannins from witch hazel can make plant-based antivirals

Here’s How to Make Hand Soaps With Essential Oils:

1. Using a small foam soap dispenser, add 3 teaspoons of witch hazel.
2. Add 6 drops of essential oils of your choice.
3. Fill the bottle with distilled water
4. Shake to mix everything together

Homemade Foaming Hand Soap with Dawn

Dawn is a popular dish soap that is good for removing grease. Their regular formula is too hard on the hands. If you’ve ever washed dishes without gloves using Dawn’s regular formula, you were probably left with very dry hands afterward.

However, the company has a line of dish soap called Dawn Gentle Clean that doesn’t hurt your hands and this is the version of Dawn that we will use for this recipe.

Here’s How to Make Foaming Hand Soap With Dawn:

1. Using a small foam soap dispenser, fill 1/2 the bottle with Dawn Gentle Clean dish soap
2. Fill the rest of the bottle with distilled water
3. Shake gently to mix everything together.

DIY Foaming Hand Soap with Aloe Vera

Aloe Vera is a good ingredient for foaming hand soaps because they contain antioxidants, enzymes and is ani-inflammatory. Aloe Vera also has great soothing properties and can help to treat dry skin.

Here’s How to Make Foaming Hand Soap With Aloe Vera:

1. Using a small foam soap dispenser, fill ¼ of it with castile soap.
2. Add 3 teaspoons of witch hazel.
3. Add 1 tsp of aloe vera gel.
4. Add 10 drops of any essential oils of your choice. (lavender and lemongrass essential oil works great)
5. Fill the rest of the bottle with distilled water
6. Shake gently to mix everything together.

How to Make Foaming Hand Soap with Body Wash

If you’ve got some extra body wash, you can easily turn it into foaming hand soap. This recipe works best if you’ve got a gentle body wash that smells similar to your favorite hand soap.

Here’s How to Make Foaming Hand Soap with Body Wash:

1. Add 2 tablespoons of body wash in a small foam soap dispenser.
2. Fill the rest of the bottle with distilled water.
3. Shake gently to mix everything together.

How to Make Foaming Hand Soap with Regular Hand Soap

You can easily your regular hand soap into a foaming version. However, this method requires you to dilute the concentration of your regular hand soap. The foaming version will have less soap for each pump but will make your regular hand soap last longer.

Here’s How to Make Foaming Hand Soap with Regular Hand Soap:

1. Using a small foam soap dispenser, fill 1/4 of it with your regular hand soap.
2. Fill the rest of the bottle with distilled water.
3. Gently shake to mix contents together.