I love to travel with my homemade bars of soap, but it can get a bit awkward and slimy. The last time I went to New York City I was staying in a budget hotel with shared showers, meaning I was carrying a slippery, wet bar of soap back to my room after every shower and carefully perching it on the corner of a slightly ajar drawer to dry it back out. I never use hotel bar soaps, either, preferring my own, which means I either have to stop washing my hands the night before I leave somewhere, or I’m packing a wet bar into a zip top bag and hoping for the best. Erk. Anyhow, when Danni got in touch wondering about single use soap petals for traveling and camping, I got to thinking—what other ways could I travel smarter with my homemade soap?
#1 Make smaller soap
This one starts with the making phase and is pretty easy to do. You can form your still-soft (but saponified) soap into small balls, cut it into smaller cubes or sheets, or use smaller molds (like an ice cube tray). This method is best suited for places where you’ll be staying for a few days so you can set up your little soap at the sink and use it multiple times. This one’s also good for shampoo; if you have as much hair as I do you’ll probably get one shampoo use out of it before it’s too small for easy hair washing and becomes a hand soap.
#2 Slice it up
You can do this with any bar of soap, but I found ones that were rectangular of some variety were best as you could get even, thin slices more easily. Cut them as thin as you can for the least amount of waste. It’s best to use quite an old bar so it’s very dry as drier soap slices are less likely to stick to each other (you can also toss the final slices in a wee bit of clay to further prevent them sticking back together). I also tried using an extra coarse Microplane cheese grater and got some nicely sized noodles of soap.
#3 Grind it
If you’ve been looking for a use for all those soap scraps you’ve been saving, here you go! I put a few super dry shards of old soap in my DIY coffee grinder with a spoonful of white kaolin clay (USA / Canada), popped on my dust mask (don’t skip this part!) and ground it all into powdery, soapy oblivion. This probably took about two minutes for me; I just kept whirring away until I could hear any big bits of soap rattling around anymore. Once you’ve got your soap powder you can use a wee sprinkle of it to wash your hands with or turn it into a soap paste by combining two parts soap powder with one part water in a little bowl, stirring it together, and letting it soak up into a paste before using (I find this is nicer for showers).
So, what do you do?
Do you have any tips for travelling or camping with homemade soap?
Great tips – thank you! I particularly like the powdery idea for working up into travel shampoo as tiny bars really do disappear so quickly on long hair and don’t seem to get sudsy so easily. What with face mask, dry acidic rinse and exfoliating granules, it’s just one more suspicious powder to get through airport security 😀
Thanks! If you soak the soap powder overnight you sort of end up with a soap putty that’s pretty fun to use 😛 And only slightly less suspicious… 😉
When I pour a batch of soap I fill a candy mold tray of little gem shaped single use soaps. It takes very little of the soap batter and I can fit 1 oz of soap gems in a 2 oz tin. They are great for road trips when we end up stopping at a roadside restroom. They’ve also been great gifts for the backpackers in my life.
Oh, what a great idea!
Great idea! Thanks for sharing 🙂
Hi, when I travel I put my soap in one of those little bags that they sell at Michaels for wedding favors. I can hang it up and the organza serves as a buffer for your skin. The soap lasts longer also.
I love this idea, Ellen! Thanks for sharing 🙂
I plane all my bars and depending on soap type either roll the shavings (regular bar soaps) or dry them flat between a couple of pieces of baking paper (transparent). Each lasts 1, maybe 2 uses & they’re so easy to tuck away and carry without having to worry about a soap container or having wet soap going soft in your bag.
Thanks, Laura!
Hi Marie … well I use a soap planer or a cheese slicer can be used to slice off thin one time use pieces and store them in a 4 oz tin jar I can get 30 thin pieces in a tin … one piece is enough for a full shower … no waste and totally portable.
Thanks, Blanca! 🙂
Hi Marie, Could you not make up a squeeze bottle of homemade soap that is smooth enough to use much like a body wash soap you would buy commercially? Just squeeze out what you need and you’re lathering in laughter. No need to fumble around with bits of soap granules or those annoying end-of-days slivers of a once hearty bar of soap. Seems like a reasonable solution while traveling. No fuss, no mess… just toss it back in your bag. 🙂
yes, this is possible. marie does have some liquid soap recipes and body washes etc. if you browse through the soap category you will see them. but with airlines restricting how much liquid stuff you can have in a carry on bag… this blog was about solid soap for traveling with.
Hey David! You definitely could, but then you’re travelling with liquid, which is a pain if you’re trying to fly carry-on only, especially for any extended period of time. There’s also leakage worries, which I’d rather not deal with. But yup, liquid soap is a great option if those things don’t bother you 🙂
You could also put your finely powdered soap into a sugar shaker, but don’t mix it up with sugar or you will not be happy : )
Good call! Thanks for sharing 🙂
Not really a traveling tip, but when our soap is getting on the thin side, I just stick it to another bar of soap, let them both dry overnight and viola, I turn a sliver into a new bar of soap.
Yes this we make also and it is the best…. no useless pieces of soap, you can use it till the last piece :).
Great idea! I currently have a box full of scraps and slivers for some sort of upcoming concoction 😛 That box is getting surprisingly large!
I keep my soap in a zip lock bag and when finished with the soap I just pop it into the bag, zip it and I travel all year round stopping from 2 nights to 6 weeks. No issues in Customs.
That’s what I’ve been doing, too, but the sliminess of the wet bar in the bag is kind of gross, and always leaving it to dry before packing is annoying :/ I don’t imagine customs would ever have a problem with soap, though, unless you were importing thousands of kilos of it 😛
I carry a full bar with me in a plastic travel box made for bar soap. Me, my husband, and our daughter all use it to bathe and my husband and I both use it for shaving, so a smaller bar would disappear too fast, I think. I just make sure to prop it up in the box after we bathe, rotating it around everyday so one end doesn’t shrink up faster than the other if we happen to get water in the box. When it gets packed up, I put the box in a plastic bag in case there’s any water in/on the box, and away we go! Easy-Peasy! I have been thinking about making smaller bars, though, for shorter trips. I like the candy mold idea. Those would make good gifts/samples too, since I always seem to be giving away soap for one reason or another!
Fair enough—I almost always travel alone, and even when I don’t I usually don’t share bath products with my travelling companions, so my methods are definitely more solo-traveller friendly 🙂
Candy mold soaps are also great for guest bathrooms and the like if you’re the type of person who has a guest bathroom and is fussed about the soap in there always looking new 😉 (I am not haha, but I saw the idea on Pinterest!)
These are great ideas. But then, like Belinda, I have never had an issue with my travel soap dish. I bought it on holiday in Kazakhstan 9 years ago, it’s super cheap and plasticy (and pink!), but I’ve never found a more chic version with the same design. The bottom is like a normal soap dish with small ridge round the edge, then the lid is deep enough to accomodate and contain the soap but also turns upside down and slots into the base keeping it all together when in use. Providing you shake your soap off after use and air it for how ever long you have between moving on, the soap never gets that slimy, if at all 🙂
Thanks, Alex!
I actually have a crochet soap bag I made for showering, but didn’t work out so hot for bathing. But, it works great for traveling. The cotton absorbs any excess water on the bar and keeps it from getting slimy, but breathes well enough to dry out quickly. I still put it in a ziplock bag just in case, but it works great.
What a cool idea! I suppose the bag also makes it easier to hang up to dry as well, right?
What a great idea! Would you be willing to attach a photo or send me a photo at mema6162[at]gmail.com so I can get our youth club involved in making some for their frequent camping trips? I have some cotton yarn that would work very well. 🙂
Hey Cheryl! I’ve just tweaked the appearance of your email a bit to try to foil spam bots 🙂
Thank you so much! I need to think of that in the future 🙂
I use one of my felted soaps when traveling. They are like a soap and washcloth all in one. I keep it in a plastic travel soap dish/container.
Ooh, great idea Linda!
Thank you for helping us traveling girls out! Brilliant.
Thanks, Tracy!
Thanks so very much for you generosity in sharing your delightful
recipes. Im fairly new at making my own creams, soaps etc. I was wondering if you had a really nice goats milk soap recipe to share.
Thankyou again,
Regards
Sue D
Hi Sue! I’m planning on sharing a goats milk soap recipe in the next month or so; stay tuned and thanks for reading!
I use a soap saver bag and bring a hook for the shower. It works out great because after I shower I hang my soap saver bag on the hook and when I am ready to go my soap and soap saver bag is dry.
Thanks, Lisa!
I use an old tin, small one like Altoids, and just pack whatever piece I have that fits or slice of a piece. Keep it in my purse and just whip it out everywhere, I go to festivals and usually end up very popular around the tap, when I let everyone use it 🙂
Come to think of it, maybe there could be an issue with rust – I’ve never had any and been using the same tin for years! I make sure not to drip a lot of water in there, when putting back the soap. I want to try the powder + spicejar version, I can see it working well.
I looove your blog – and you Marie! You were a big part of the inspiration that got me into soaping <3 my very, very favorite hobby/subject/addiction/all consuming passtime. Thank you so much, for all you do!
Thanks, Rosa, I love this idea! Does the soap dry out well inside the tin? I’d be worried about drying = leaking of soapy water into my purse, but I’m guessing you don’t have that problem if you’re recommending it as that would be pretty icky haha.
Thanks so much for reading and DIYing with me!
I use the olive oil based savon de Marseilles, for everything clothes washing, bath/shower, hair, shave and even my teeth. Yep my teeth to. I can’t stand those metal or plastic boxes tho I use a simple cotton ditty bag it keeps my sdm dry. So my sdm lasts twice as long as a chemical loaded bar of soap.
Thanks for sharing!