It might be fun, but it is only cheaper in the long run if you consider your time to be worth nothing.

You can do it pretty cheap if you source your fat from high end liposuction clinics.

Unless you enjoy the process, or the end result enough then no.

The reason artisanal soap is expensive is because it's a fairly labour intensive process on a small scale. I did the numbers with a friend who thought about making it a few years back.

I dunno if they're still around, but there's a number of soap companies in Palestine that genuinely had some of the best bar soap I've ever used. No perfumes, the soap itself is dense enough to last 10x longer than anything you buy at the store, and I had no irritation. They might be rubble by now tho.

Totally. Once a year I make a huge batch with all the things I like and none of what I hate. I give out a bunch for Christmas and have enough to last me the rest of the year.

Occasionally I'll dig out my supplies mid-year for something special or to make soap with friends, then I just have extra.

It was easy to learn and the costs were worth it.

The overall costs long term are much cheaper to make your own soap.

We started making food for our dogs due to one of them having an allergic reaction to the food we were feeding them before. It's far far cheaper to make it ourselves, and isn't really that hard. It just took learning about the basic steps and doing it.

I make my own soap from 3 ingredients: lard that I process from bacon grease, lye, and water. It is extremely cheap and easy to make, and cleans really effectively. And no, the soap does not smell like bacon at all, it just smells like soap.

Are soaps like dove or ivory not available?

Ivory is the original generic soap and really cheap. Stuff lasts forever. And isn't scented. I bought a sleeve of several bars for like $7.99 - should last 2 years or more.

Dove technically isn't the same thing, but it's also cheap and some people find it less drying.

Ive been making my own liquid body for about 6 months and it doesn't include castil soap or putting bar soap in water. All the ingredients are available online and the end result comes out to a fraction of the price of store bought. It's also a great option for allergen control as all 7 of the ingredients are low reactives.

I'm currently pushing into shampoo and conditioner, both are a little more work than the body wash as they need to be heated and ph balanced. If my research is correct, all three can be made as concentrates for long term storage and all you have to do is add it to the water and xanthum gum before use.

If you're interested in getting into it, hit me up and I'll give you the deets. I have incredibly specific preferences in texture, smell, and experience so it's not perfect by my standards, but it's fucking amazing compared to buying it at the store and I've wanted root beer scented body wash since I was a child. Plus, you don't need anything special for the body wash, I mix it in a 4 cup measuring cup and put it in aldi Condament bottles.

I made soap once and it was fun. We were 4 people and everyone made a slightly different version. The base was the same but the add-ins (fragrant oils, poppyseed, coffee, honey, etc.) were chosen individually. It was quite fun and everyone walked away with 4 different types of soap (after a few weeks/months).

Just buy a ready to use kit with everything already weighed out. Cold saponification is the easy way. Took me about 30 minutes to prepare six bars and they will last for quite some time. The soap turned out much softer but i keep the unused soap in a dry place for curing. Maybe the next soap will be harder. Next step for me will be to buy the ingredients in bulk to cut down on plastic waste. I will also add fragrance next time.

My parents used to buy Imperial Leather when I was a kid, I used shower gels for a while, but eventually came back to it. It cheap, lathers well, cleans well, isn't overly perfumed. I struggle to believe you could make an equivalent soap at home for the same price assuming you value your time. (you could buy it in both the UK and Australia so I assume it's everywhere)

There is a soap making comm, but it's dead last I checked.

Whenever I think about making soap I think about making my own lye in a pottery kiln. Would fire pots while burning up clam shells or whatever to make the ~~NaOH~~ CaOH, at least that's how I remember it's made.

I thought this said “soup” and was about to be all up in arms about it as a soup lover. Please carry on.

If you don't want ridiculous amount of goddamn perfume in it, you pretty much need to.

IDK if these manufacturers don't have olfactory senses in their QC departments, but it's getting stupid how much more scent is being added. I had a Costco brick of Irish Spring soaps I'd been whittling away at and bought another one recently. I couldn't even stand having the new one in the house, I tossed it because it stank so much, even through the door of the bathroom cabinet. I still have a couple left from the old brick and they're manageable but now I'm going to have to find something else.

Maybe I need to look into making it, too.