What to do with all those soap nubs left behind in the tub?

Make your own dish soap, of course.

We gave up a long time ago on buying cleaning products that ironically pollute the very space they're allegedly trying to tidy up; making the switch to biodegradable, gentle products containing as few ingredients as possible.

Unfortunately, the gallon-sized jugs of

Bio-Pac dish soap

that we love retail at the local health store for around $18 (yikes). So when the idea arose to upcycle old bars of soap to create lots and lots of dish soap, we jumped right on the proverbial bandwagon.

Here's how simple this recipe is:

Old bars (or nubs of bars) of soap
Cheese grater for grating the soap with
Hot water
Lemon juice or white vinegar

Add

two cups of soap shavings

to every

2-3 cups of hot water

(we used a big pasta pot on the stove for this—no need to boil the water, just get it hot!), mix, and let it sit overnight. The next day, mix the concoction again, adding more water as needed. Mix in

1/2 cup of lemon juice or white vinegar

to help fight grease. Then carefully funnel the soap into your bulk containers for easy storage...