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When I first started learning about making soap, I never once considered making my own dish soap. That came later on and one day while perusing Pinterest, I saw an idea for dish soap bars. Why didn’t I think to do that?! For some reason I always think of dish soap as liquid, when in reality, that poison blue stuff is not even soap… it’s a detergent. And then I look into the ingredients and why am I okay with sticking my hands in this multiple times a day…. and all those worthless plastic bottles.

Not ready to start making your own soap yet?! Try a bar from my online farm stand!

The plastic waste is bonkers and they make us feel better about it with recycling. There’s also people that use liquid castile soap with good luck, but I don’t really enjoy making that and I also don’t want to buy it because more plasticccccc. Plus, it’s really dang easy to just make it yourself. And this coming year will be the year I completely give up store bought dish soap and make all my own cleaning products. It is tiiiiiime. And a bit ridiculous I’m a very talented soap maker that doesn’t take the time to make my own crafted dish soap bar recipe. Come on Ruby. Make a good choice.

So, I developed a super easy cold process dish soap recipe. I am a cold process soap maker so those are the recipes and technique you will see, but if you prefer hot process soap, go ham. Originally I saw ideas for lard or tallow dish soap and I’m just kinda not wild about using my precious animal fats to DO THE DISHES. That seems wasteful to me… but, that’s me. I think my animal fats from animals I lovingly raise and then slowly render after harvest should be utilized better than that! Nourish me not wash my dishes… unless they’re washing the dishes for me. NOW. If push came to shove, I’d absolutely use my lard or tallow, but for now, I can source good quality coconut oil for an amazing price, so that is my choice. If you would like to make a lard or tallow dish soap, I have a recipe for that here as I do make it for a couple friends that have sensitivities to coconut oil soap. You cannot outright sub tallow for coconut oil in a soap recipe without running it through a lye calculator due to oils all having different properties and SAP values, meaning they all use a certain amount of lye for saponification, and expect good results.

In This Post You'll Find...

Superfat

When you enter the soap world, you’ll hear about superfat. Most folks aim for body soaps for be around 5% superfat. Anything lower will dry your skin the heck out and anything higher won’t be a very hard or long lasting bar. For dish soap, I do a 0% superfat because I want the soap to be super cleansing and not leave any fat or oil residues from remaining superfat. By doing 0, you’re not leaving any oil molecules un-saponified. I blend a mostly coconut oil bar with just a dab of olive oil to make it a bit more of a gentle soap and easier on the hands. This recipe has served me well and I sure do a ton of dishes!

Using Homemade Dish Soap

Don’t even expect homemade dish soap to perform exactly like store-bought dish soap from the store. You have to remember that those detergents have surfactants and additives to make them super hard on grease and super sudsy. While homemade dish soap gets nice and sudsy, the bubbles don’t stay around super long. I have found that using a brush and rubbing it on the solid dish soap bars between each dish or so really helps with the cleaning power. A dish soap bar nearly lasts me 2 weeks and you’d be surprised if you knew how many dishes I did on a daily basis. I find that longevity mixed with the ability to cleanse my dishes and not poison me to be quite impressive.

Essential Oil Blends For Dish Soap

8g Rosemary & 10g Peppermint
9g Lemon essential oil & 9g Sweet Orange oil
12g Lavender & 6g Basil

Let’s make some homemade dish soap bars!

Equipment You Might Want:

Lye safe container for lye solution
Soap making safe pitcher or bowl
Soap making spatula
Immersion blender
Scale

Ingredients:

13 oz Coconut Oil
1 oz Olive Oil
18 g Essential oils
2.5 oz Sodium Hydroxide
5.3 oz Filtered Water

Step 1: Make the Lye Solution

First, it is a good idea to read up on, know, and understand basic lye safety and soapmaking technique before attempting this recipe. I will not be providing in depth step by step instructions as this recipe is meant for someone who already knows how to make soap. This recipe uses techniques to make cold-process bar soap.

Second, I recommend you run every single soap recipe you want to use through a lye calculator on your own just to double check, because while I do aim for perfection, I am human and these fingers will occasionally type their own numbers on this screen. So to prevent and avoid disaster, please double check my numbers even though I checked, re-checked, checked that check, and checked checked checky checked it.

Into a lye safe container, measure out water. Add in lye and stir to dissolve in a well-ventilated area. Allow to cool until below 90 degrees F. (This is my personal preference, others like to soap hotter but I have found with my skills and technique, soaping under 90 works fabulous).

Step 2: Melt the oils

Measure coconut oil out and melt, stirring occasionally.

Add in olive oil.

Allow oils to cool to 80-90 degrees F. You want the oils to be within 10 degrees F of the lye solution for best results.

Step 3: Prep

While the lye solution and oils cool, prepare your area to make soap. Get the molds ready. I like to use the flower molds I have linked in the printable version of the recipe and this makes about 10 bars of dish soap using these round flower molds but you can absolutely pour this into a loaf. Just be sure it doesn’t over heat as coconut oil is ornery and cut it soon after it cools and hardens wearing gloves as coconut creates a very hard bar.

Weigh out essential oils into a small glass container using the blend of your choice. If you want to do one of the blends I mentioned above, just measure out equal parts of them.

Step 4: Make Soap

Again, observing soap making safety and lye safety and wearing the appropriate PPE, add the lye solution to the oils.

Blend with a stick blender until light trace is reached. It’s normally pretty fast with coconut oil.

After trace is reached, add in essential oils of your choice. Blend to combine.

Pour soap batter into prepared soap molds.

Lightly tap molds to remove any air bubbles and spritz with 91% rubbing alcohol to encourage any bubbles to the surface.

Allow to cool down in a cool area until set. If using a loaf mold, be prepared to cut the soap in about 3-4 hours of pouring. If using the round flower molds like me, it can sit in these molds for days.

Step 5: Cure

Remove soap from mold and allow to cure 2-4 weeks. The longer the soap cures the better as it gives the bar time to dry out and evaporate the water content so it lasts longer. You can use them after 48 hours, but I’d recommend just a teensy bit of patience for best results!

To use:

Use a dish soap brush or sponge and work the soap bar into a good lather. Scrub the soapy brush directly on the dishes to clean and then rinse well. Reapply as needed.

Store bar in a place it can drain and dry between uses to have the longest lasting bar possible.

Notes:

Do not sub another oil for coconut oil unless you have verified they have similar SAP values. If you would like to use lard or tallow, please refer to my other homemade dish soap recipes for this!

You could potentially use this soap for laundry detergent since the superfat is 0, but I would personally recommend and all coconut oil soap for that, as you can find on this blog post I will link here once it is up. It works great and the bars double as a stain busting stick.

I hope this homemade solid bar dish soap recipe serves you well or you can bless someone else with homemade goodness!

Homemade Solid Dish Soap Bar Recipe with Coconut Oil

Print Pin Rate

Prep Time: 10

Cook Time: 10

Lye Cooling Time: 2

Servings: 3 ounce bars

Equipment

Lye safe container for lye solution
Soap making safe pitcher or bowl
Soap making spatula
immersion blender
Scale

Ingredients

13 oz Coconut Oil
1 oz Olive Oil
18 g Essential oils
2.5 oz Sodium Hydroxide
5.3 oz Filtered Water

Instructions

First, it is a good idea to read up on, know, and understand basic lye safety and soapmaking technique before attempting this recipe. I will not be providing in depth step by step instructions as this recipe is meant for someone who already knows how to make soap. This recipe uses techniques to make cold-process bar soap.
Into a lye safe container, measure out water. Add in lye and stir to dissolve in a well-ventilated area. Allow to cool until below 90 degrees F.
Measure coconut oil out and melt, stirring occasionally.
Add in olive oil.
Allow oils to cool to 80-90 degrees F. You want the oils to be within 10 degrees F of the lye solution for best results.
While the lye solution and oils cool, prepare your area to make soap. Get the molds ready. I like to use the flower molds I have linked in the printable version of the recipe and this makes about 6-10 bars of dish soap using these round flower molds but you can absolutely pour this into a loaf. Just be sure it doesn't over heat as coconut oil is ornery and cut it soon after it cools and hardens wearing gloves as coconut creates a very hard bar.
Weigh out essential oils into a small glass container using the blend of your choice. If you want to do one of the blends I mentioned above in the blog post.
Again, observing soap making safety and lye safety and wearing the appropriate PPE, add the lye solution to the oils.
Blend with a stick blender until light trace is reached. It's normally pretty fast with coconut oil.
After trace is reached, add in essential oils of your choice. Blend to combine.
Pour soap batter into prepared soap molds.
Lightly tap molds to remove any air bubbles and spritz with 91% rubbing alcohol to encourage any bubbles to the surface.
Allow to cool down in a cool area until set. If using a loaf mold, be prepared to cut the soap in about 3-4 hours of pouring. If using the round flower molds like me, it can sit in these molds for days.
Remove soap from mold and allow to cure 2-4 weeks. The longer the soap cures the better as it gives the bar time to dry out and evaporate the water content so it lasts longer. You can use them after 48 hours, but I'd recommend just a teensy bit of patience for best results!

To Use:

Use a dish soap brush or sponge and work the soap bar into a good lather. Scrub the soapy brush directly on the dishes to clean and then rinse well. Reapply as needed. Store bar in a place it can drain and dry between uses to have the longest lasting bar possible.

Notes