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For a few years now I’ve avoided trying to make my own natural body wash. Oh, I’ve tried before, sure, but was not real thrilled with my results. If you’re trying to keep it natural, castile soap is usually your best option and most of the recipes I tried with castile soap just seemed kind of watery and I found myself not making them again. But recently I came across a slightly different version of a homemade natural body wash in a book I was reading that I decided to try, and it’s been going a little better with this recipe!

While reading this book I spotted a recipe for a natural body wash that once again used castile soap but instead of just a watered down soap recipe it had two interesting ingredients I hadn’t tried in a DIY body wash before – glycerin and raw honey. Just as I thought, both of these ingredients turned out to be a nice way to tone down the soap a little bit, but they also kept the mixture from getting too watery. (Plus, I love to use glycerin in any homemade skin care product!)

Now I’ll mention here that this mixture is still a somewhat thin mixture, even with these two additional ingredients, however I have a new solution for that too. A pump bottle! All the other times I tried a homemade castile soap body wash I would put it in some kind of a squirt bottle. Then when I would use it, I would turn it over to squirt some out, and it would come out way too fast. But things are going so much better with a pump soap dispenser. It’s so much easier to get as much or as little as I need onto my washcloth or loofah using this method. I just bought a cheapie dispenser at Walmart and keep it on the shelf in my shower.

How To Make Homemade Natural Body Wash

The recipe I’m sharing here is my adapted version of the one I found in the Green Enough book that will make a slightly larger batch that’s about 10 fluid ounces.

To make this mixture you simple combine all the ingredients in a mixing bowl. In addition to the liquid castile soap, glycerin, and raw honey, you also add in an oil (such as apricot, almond, or jojoba), and little bit of Vitamin E oil (I buy mine at Target). Finally, you can finish up by adding some essential oil for fragrance if you wish. You can then transfer the mixture to the container of your choice (as mentioned above, I recommend a pump soap dispenser).

I did not suggest any fragrance combos in the recipe below as I’m still trying different ones myself. I think I actually prefer to use the unscented castile soap and then just add some essential oil if I want to add fragrance. I used this strategy in my current batch using unscented castile soap and orange essential oil and it turned out nice. Another option is to just use a scented castile soap (such as rose castile soap) and then skip the essential oil. You could also match the soap and the essential oil (for instance using both peppermint castile soap and peppermint essential oil) or pick two complimentary fragrances. There’s lots of possibilities!

This recipe is an easy way to give yourself a natural alternative that requires nothing more complicated than mixing some ingredients together in a mixing bowl and pouring them into a soap dispenser. Those are the kind of recipes I love when I make my own and I hope to stick with this new recipe for a while!