Oh god. I'll have to forward this to my mother who's kept one 'foaming' dispenser, buying soap and watering it down for use in the foamer for years now. I hate it when she's right.

Dr.Bronner's soap works well in foaming dispensers, since it's not very thick. But if you don't add some water, it clogs up.

Dilute! Dilute! OK!

We save on soap costs in the bathroom & kitchen by putting watered down dishwashing liquid into pump dispensers. (for hand washing only).

This requires the use of hand soap.

Just wash your hand the guy way: rinse, dry hands on pants.

Easy AND cheap!!

@Glaven: Haha! Love the exclamation marks and Bronner-esque OKs.

But what if you want the soap to smell like vanilla yogurt? WHAT THEN?!
Pfft.

I'll save $3 a month! Hooray!

I'm a big fan of cheap shampoo (like 99 cents or less) for hand soap. It smells great, works just as well, and for those of us that think antibacterial things are mostly unnecessary, it fits the bill.

I use FastOrange or GoJo. The pumice exfoliates the skin, and it contains natural citrus oil,lanolin, etc to mosturize. It will also cut through grease. It's $10 for a gallon. The only caveat is that you use it dry, then rinse off. Using regular soap is just as effective as using anti soaps, and better for everyone.

That is good to know. Foaming hand soap isn't so bad though. It saves money for businesses and saves resources for the environment. You're better off using it.

We did this for years - we had a source (which sadly dried up) for coconut shower gel that, when diluted slightly, filled the kitchen with scent as you washed chicken off your hands.

No Salmonella and a Fresh Scent - It's a good thing.

@12-Inch Idongivafuck Sandwich: It's all good, until you're at a location where you really need to keep sanitary.

I'm sure you think twice about doing that after handling E. Coli and Salmonella in a lab for several hours ;-)

Of course you can just use a dime sized amount of regualar soap. I guess Americans are use to using things in excesss.

Example.. toothpaste. People generally cover the entire brush with a think layer of paste when all you really need is just to moderately cover only like 1/3 of teh brush. (again the dime sized)

Another example.. some people eat a whole pizza when really only 2 slices is what you need to be full.

ike foaming hand soap because it allows you to use less than than you would with traditional hand soap. So, the cost per utilization is less even though cost per ounce is higher. I'd also assumed that that the soap was soapier than regular soap, but if you can get a decent lather win normal soap, that's even better.

I always feel like I have to use more foaming soap than regular because it doesn't stick to your skin as much

I wonder what the usage rate is for foam vs. liquid soap. I always got the feeling that I didn't use as much if it foamed, but I never did a test of them. For awhile, I used a bar I bought at a renfest, handmade stuff. Cut it into pieces and STILL have half of it left after two years.

@Git Em SteveDave wants a Lego build buddy: Can you use GoJo and pumice on your junk too? Do the ladies like it? JK!

I've been doing this foam thing for about 15 years now. You can use about 1 part soap : 7 parts water, if you're using dishwashing liquid. If you're using shampoo or other less concentrated stuff, use about 1:5.

Be aware that diluted detergent can grow mold in it, so keep your bottle clean, and be more careful if you're using the foam to clean your hands for contact lenses. You'll see the mold as a gray layer at the bottom of the bottle contents and/or growing in the cap and pump itself. If universal precautions are important, use only antibacterial products in the foamer.

Finally, this idea doesn't work well with true soaps (like Dr. Bronner's). Soap clogs the pump. Stick with detergents (dw liquid, shampoo, body wash).

Thanks for a great tip !
Our household has been buying shampoo or body wash when on sale for years and dumping the bottles into a pump dispenser just so we don't squirt giant globs onto the washcloths. This has cut our over-usage so much that what used to last about a week and a half now last for about a month.

Suave, V05 & White Rain regularly sell in our area for about a dollar a bottle. We usually buy the citrus variety of any one of these brands when on sale. That way, the pump dispenser always has a similar scent and we can dump any brand into it.

@ChuckECheese: I haven't had that many occasions to get oil on him, so I never have used GoJo for there. Next time I change oil and find oil in my crotch, I'll let you know.

The cheap pump dispensers break after a refill or two in my experience

Pampered Chef actually sells bottles that you add your own soap and water to and it makes the foaming soap

For even more savings you can use the concentrated Dawn dishwashing soap that you can buy in the huge "super saver" bottles. If you mix it with a lot of water you can actually get a richer and better foam that cuts grease better than hand soap. Been doing this for years now.

@theblackdog: My wife bought some of the Pampered Chef foaming soap bottles and both broke after just two times refilling.

I've been doing this for 2 years now. Who doesn't already know this? It works great!

I love the foaming hand soap. I was a fan of it long before it appeared on store shelves. It hit the restaurant (and probably other commerical) industries first, and it was ingenious. Those of us that was our hands in restaurants tend to use too much soap. You know: pump it five or six times until you have something substantive in your hand. I do that, even though logically it makes no sense. It's actually harder to lather and rinse off. But a pump or two of foam soap, and the lathering is almost done, and the rinsing doesn't leave unmixed soap in your hand.

I still like the restaurant ones better. All of the consumer versions I've tried have a wimpy bubble matrix, and won't stand up on their own. I want something like merengue, not the weak bubbles you get when you add water to the dish sink.

This also works to refill the Dawn Direct Foam dispenser. Just water down regular Dawn.

Or how about realize that it's not really the soap that sterilizes your hands, but the hot water? The soap just helps cut dirt and grime that would otherwise help harbor microbes. Anti-bacterial soap arguably does more harm than good, hastening natural selection and helping breed resistant strains of bacteria.

Pick your favorite cheap non-anti-bacterial bulk size soap, use it sparingly, and don't skimp on the hot water when you wash your hands.

We tend to buy Wal*Mart bar soap or the generic orange stuff by the metric ton so I can't see us saving much.

@duckfat: My folks are big on buying the jumbo sizes and refilling the smaller bottles. It makes sense but then you have to store the bulk stuff.

@urban_ninjya: Ooh, the required anti-american post of the day. :/

Foaming soap is a lot more pleasant to use IMHO. It's considerably faster in lathering than regular liquid soap, cleans off easier, easier to clean spills of, and with this guide, doesn't cost any more in soap OR even non-renewable resources.

It's progress. Beautiful beautiful progress of human technology. THE FUTURE IS NOW: THE SOAP FOAMS BY ITSELF.

@Glaven: I'm a Bronner evangelist. For the soap, not the crazy ranting on the side of the bottle. Although the crazy is fun reading for in the shower.

Kids love the foaming, and they use the right amount of soap. Most soaps are too viscous for kids to wash off themselves.

@balthisar: Just use slightly less water in your water to soap ratio. You have to be careful you don't get too thick and clog the pump though.

@Git Em SteveDave wants a Lego build buddy: yes to fastorange. The only soap you buy at AutoZone.

i find that the Dawn foaming pump works great with this meathod, but the foaming soap pumps from bath and body works tend to get stuck int he down position.

I use LAVA for everything.

@techstar25: I guess my parents lucked out, the one they bought is still working after a few years.

Cool, I never bought foaming refills since they were too expensive compared to regular liquid soap. Now I can foam :)

@InThrees: Wrong. While the hot water definitely helps the soap work more efficiently, it does not kill the bacteria itself. You'd have to use water hot enough to give you 2nd degree burns for that to be the case.

I love the foaming soap.

We get way more uses out of the same volume of regular soap. Buy refills of brand name or private label foaming cleanser. The pump on my original Dial Foaming Soap is still going strong after a year!

Also, as people have said before.

Soap removes dirt, oils and bacteria. Warmer water helps cut through grease. Antibacterial soaps usually contain triclosan which is bacteriostatic not bacteriocidal. Which mean it inhibits growth of any bacteria still present after handwashing.

I would not be really worrying about bacteria developing a resistance to triclosan. You may as well argue against putting chlorine in water as for fear of 'resistance'. Oh wait, people do argue against chlorine in the water, even though it ranks as one of man's greatest public health triumphs.

All-one-or-none! Unite!
www.drbronner.com

Also, the environmental working group rates it safe:
[www.cosmeticsdatabase.com]

Or buy regular soap and use a foaming dispenser? Isn't that the same concept with less effort in which your hands will smell just as good?

@LmaoTseTung: *buy a large container of regular soap

Doesn't anyone use bar soap to wash their hands anymore, or is that considered gross?

@testsicles: Lava is good. Boraxo is better.

I've been doing this for a while now - picked up one of the Dawn Direct Foam bottles at a discount store for a buck, and once it was empty, I simply filled it 1/6th of the way with ordinary dish soap and the rest with warm water and gently mixed it up and voila! I find it cleans great and I use less soap.

@HurtsSoGood: Only in hotel rooms, and it always bugs me, but I'm a little NYC-OCD* about washing my hands.

*You know, Ack, subway hands!

That Dawn dish foam was the biggest rip off I have ever tried. One pump cleans a whole load of dishes. Pshhhht. What a load of crap.

Another one who's been doing this for a few years. I used to do about 10% soap, but now I do closer to 20%, to get the result more like the original product.

And I've also found that the dial pumps tend to die after 2-3 refills. They just seem to clog and not foam as well, and not bounce back to the up position quickly, if at all. I've been wondering if it's clogging with unmixed soap or what. If anyone knows why or how to prevent/fix it, shout your info out loud here in the comments!

@HurtsSoGood:
I personally think it's gross. I always think of the bar of soap at my grandparents' house that was always dirty from the previous user's hands.

I also don't like the way it feels on my skin - like there's some sort of film left over.

That Dawn foaming dish soap is the greatest invention ever!

I can make dinner using one pan, utensils and a plate. I put the utensils and plate in the dishwasher and use one pump of soap to clean the pan. Now I didn't have to fill a sink to wash one pan and I don't leave dirty dishes around until I have enough to fill a sink.

I do agree, it's useless against a full sink of dishes.