Make your own shower gel at home in 5 minutes

Shower gels that you buy off the supermarket shelves not only burn a hole in your pockets, but also contain a number of chemicals. Want to make a shower gel yourself ? Not only is it a ton of fun, but you can make it with completely natural ingredients – which is good for your skin ! If you have a few Aloe Vera plants growing in your balcony or backyard, this is a great weekend project for you and the kids !

 

Here’s what you will need:

• 1 cup castile soap ( you can make your own castile as well, but it takes 3 weeks – we will publish a post about how to do it yourself at a later date, but for now, you can just order a bottle of castile soap online. It is a vegetable oil based soap, and is made in a technique that was developed in the Castile region of Spain – hence the name !)
• 2 tbsp Raw Shea butter (this is optional, but adding this increase the skin hydration properties of the gel)
• 1 cup Aloe Vera Gel – just grab a few Aloe Vera leaves, peel off the green part of the leaves on one side. Scoop out the gel using a spoon (make sure you don’t let the yellow resin get into the scooped out gel – it can be somewhat irritating to the skin) Pro-tip: Make sure you take only a couple of leaves from each Aloe Vera plant – if you take more, the plant may be damaged in its growth.
• Either 1 tsp of Vitamin E oil or 500 mg of Vitamin C( Ascorbic Acid) – not only is this good for your skin, but would also act as a natural preservative
• Essential Oil of your choice – Lavender, Lime, Orange, Bergamot – pretty much most essential oils would do – you need to add in about 20 ml

Process:

• Get the aloe gel, and blend it using a mixer-blender for a couple of minutes
  
• Warm the shea butter until it’s completely melted
  
• Put the aloe gel, castile soap, vitamin E or C, shea butter and essential oil into a bottle, close the lid – and shake it for a minute.
  
• Your shower gel is ready !

If you live in a very hot area, it may be a good idea to keep the shower gel in the fridge when you are not using it, in order to extend its shelf life.