Direct Foam an Economical Way to Hand Wash

I saw a blog this weekend, that gave a recipe for homemade anti bacterial hand soap that you use in a foaming dispenser. Then I remembered how economical direct foam was for doing dishes. I used to do it a few years ago, when we lived in New York, but never got a new foam dispenser in Cleveland.

This person had a favorite brand and she reused the dispenser, claiming that it was great, because the label was easy to remove. Can't remember the brand, but I looked it up on Amazon and it sold there for $15 a bottle. Well it did have soap in it.

I went to my local grocery today, and thought, I'll just do what I did before and buy the foaming detergent and refill that container. The name brand dish soap was $4.99 a bottle there, in the foamer. Ajax was $.99 cents. Is the foamer worth that much?

I looked around and found a generic antibacterial hand soap in a foamer. $1.09. Now that was more reasonable, bought 2 and took them home. I never got a soap dispenser for the bathroom yet, so I'm using one for that room. I emptied the other one into a jar to use for the bathroom later, and cleaned all the hand soap out of the foamer.

Because I've done this before, I knew you don't put detergent in full strength. It has to be diluted for the foam to work. I add 2/3 water 1/3 dish detergent. With that percentage of soap, I've never had the water go bad, but if you have well water, I would use distilled or filtered water. My foamer works perfectly, and now I will use much less detergent when hand washing. One pump can wash several dishes.

As for the label, here's a tip. The other blogger recommended soaking the glue in hot water and scraping off. Here's my trick. Adhesives HATE oil. Mineral oil is best for adhesive removal, Skin So Soft is great, but even cooking oil will work. Rub the oil into the adhesive and easily scrape with a spoon or back of a knife. When the adhesive is all gone, then use your soap to wash up all the oil and residue.