I have eczema, my three kids sadly inherited my eczema also. So itchy dry skin is a constant issue in our home, especially in the winter. I am always looking for products that will help ease the symptoms of our eczema. Especially soaps, I usually only buy body wash or soap that is for sensitive skin or extra moisturizing. This can be expensive! I am a (non-extreme) couponer, so sometimes it is cheaper to buy the moisturizing/sensitive bar instead of body wash. Yet my entire family prefers body wash over slippery bars which turn into little slivers that get wasted and thrown away. So I buy the bars when I can get them cheaper than body wash and use them to make our own body wash!
This time I am actually using some sample bars of Dove sensitive moisturizing bars I was given, yay for free body wash!
Next I grate the bars.
Place the grated soap into a large pot and add the same ounces of water as soap. For this batch I grated 9 ounces of soap so I added 9 ounces of water. Put on a medium high heat burner and stir the whole time. Bring it to a full boil for about 4-5 minutes and then pull off the heat to cool completely.
When cool use a funnel to put into a bottle. I use an old dish soap bottle I cleaned out.
I love our homemade body wash that costs us pennies to make! It is also very easy and soothing on our dry eczema skin. Thanks for stopping by!
Johanna 🙂
My Crazy Blessed Life! 
I have been wondering how well it works! I have bought a bar of soap to try it but haven’t yet. I will be doing this soon!
How is the texture? I have made home made bodywash before (with Irish Spring and Glycerin) and it had a slimy consistency that my husband hated…Is this more similar to the actual dove body wash?
This was not slimy at all! I love it and my husband loves it more 🙂 it feels like dove body wash to us.
This wasn’t too thick, was it? Most DIY bodywash recipes I’ve seen require a lot more water – usually 1 gal to 8oz of soap.
Maybe a bit thin actually, I might boil longer next time.
That is an awful big pot for just 9oz of water and soap.
I used a large stock pot because the soap creates a lot of bubbles and I didn’t want it boiling over.
Maybe it’s the type of soap you used?
I just tried this recipe for my kids, both have ecema too. it came out very clumpy, so I’m going to try to add more water. had clumps of melted soap sticking to my stirring spoon.
Did you used dove? Maybe the grater wasn’t fine enough? Just ideas I had 🙂 hope you figure it out!
one more question: have yall ever tried adding essential oils to the body wash? my soap smell like…soap. so plain and boring lol!
I haven’t but that is a great idea!
Did those 9 bars only make enough to fill that soap bottle?
Yep 🙂
i grate 2 bars and add 4 cups water and consistenncy is good
I will definitely be trying this… been dealing with extreme dry skin all my life, skin care products are WAY too expensive…I try to save anywhere I can! 😀