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We Had No Idea How Simple It Is to Make Foaming Soap

I had to laugh at myself when I found out

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

A long time back, my wife bought some foaming hand soap for the kitchen sink. I never knew there was such a thing, but we both liked the convenience: you just squirt it out, it’s already lather so you just rub your hands for 20 seconds and rinse it off.

The only thing I didn’t like was the expense of the refills and that we sometimes couldn’t find it at the store. But as my wife pointed out, the refill jug lasted a long time, so it was not as expensive as it seemed.

Then one day a few weeks ago we ran out and I could not find it in any store. It was very expensive on line because of the cost to ship liquid. Frustrated, I decided to find out how foaming soap is made. Maybe the separate ingredients would be less expensive.

A few seconds later, I was laughing at myself. Do you know what the magic ingredient is in foaming soap? It’s water.

Foaming soap is just very watered down liquid soap. It’s watery soap. That’s all it is.

See “Does liquid soap need a preservative?” and “When should you use a preservative?”

What makes it foam is the special dispenser, which mixes watery soap with air to make foam. You…