The body wash and shampoo aisle is overwhelming. There are literally thousands of different soaps and shampoos “specially formulated” for your hair by people who have never seen your hair. Here are a few things to watch out for when buying soaps:

  • soap companies can put “natural” on just about anything
  • “fragrance” means a conglomeration of chemicals
  • avoid anything that has palm oil, as it is extremely unsustainably harvested

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A great resource when purchasing health & beauty products is the good guide. They have a rating system that helps you tease out the good from the bad throughout the grocery store. Here’s what they say about soaps. You can also look for local soap producers, and see if you can support their business and get clean, chemical free soap.

If you’re interested in making your own soap from scratch, it’s a pretty complicated process. Especially bar soaps, which easily turn into messy, slimy little balls. You’ll also need several ingredients you probably don’t have lying around the house, such as lye and tallow. If you have the time, and the patience however, home made soaps leave your skin feeling really soft, and they also make great green gifts.

Half way recipes (in which you take a pure form of soap and spruce it up) can be fun and easy to do at home. Much like the DIY shampoo recipe posted a few weeks back, you can use Castille soap to make several varieties of body wash. Here is one of my favorites:

Vanilla Almond Soap Ingredients & Recipe

1/3 cup whole almonds
1 4-ounce bar Castille soap
1/4 cup distilled water
1 tablespoon almond oil
1/8 teaspoon vanilla essential oil

Grind the almonds in a food processor or coffee grinder. Using a cheese grater or a knife, shred the bar of Castille soap. Boil the water and add the shredded soap, stirring until you get a nice gooey texture. Reduce to a simmer and then add in the almond grinds, oil and vanilla. You can spoon the soap into molds (ice cubes can make cute little gift soaps) and let it sit for around five hours until it hardens.

Make sure to recycle old soap as well. If you have little nubs of bar soap you can use them for tailor’s chalk (dry soap makes little white marks on fabric), bubble baths, or save them and form a new bar with the leftovers.

Related: previously on altCon (10.2.09) DIY Deodorant – better for you + better for the planet