Making Eco-Friendly Dish Soap

An economical alternative to common dish soap

Photo by Sarah Chai from Pexels

Is Ivy, or English Ivy really a good low cost low environmental impact alternative to regular industrial dish soap. The answer is YES. I have only recently learned that using Ivy which grows all over our property on Whidbey Island is appropriate and very effective as a dish or laundry soap. There are many benefits to using Ivy for soap.

Dissolves Fats

Fats dissolve fats as my beginning art teacher used to say. The saponins in English Ivy are effective at removing fats or dissolving them as part of the cleaning process.

Cheap Alternative

Collecting Ivy for soap is easy as it can grow in a number of locations. It is also very hardy and prolific once Ivy gets started in a spot. So there is no lack of Ivy for making soap.

Compost the Excess

When you are finished making your soap the remaining Ivy can be composted in your yard, buried in a flower bed, or put in your yard waste container. It will eventually compost in a landfill too.

Less Plastic

For storage of the soap a glass jar is useful or a spray bottle. Both these items are likely in your house already, and they can be reused. This of course saves on the amount of plastic we are forced to recycle or throw into our garbage. Better for the environment.

Easy to Produce

Or quick to produce. It can be done overnight. Here’s my recipe.

1. Gather together 40–50 ivy leaves. Rinse and clean the leaves.
2. Cut or tear the ivy leaves into smaller pieces. This helps with the saponin extraction.
3. Boil the leaves in about a liter of water for 15 minutes.
4. Let sit overnight.
5. In the morning, or whenever you get to it strain the leaves from your soap. Squeeze the leaves to release as much of the saponins as possible.
6. I put mine into an old dish soap container or spray bottle. It is better used for laundry or washing dishes than cleaning your counters I have found.

I hope you enjoy making your own dish/laundry soap from ivy in the future. The amount of soap made and the concentration of the soap can vary according to your inclination. The recipe I have setup here would take maybe 1 cup for a regular load of laundry.

There are many other things that can be used for cleaning. Using ivy for soap I think is. pretty good alternative to using another chemical based soap from the grocer that also increases the amount of plastic refuse.

Update, 2/22/2022

I wanted to give an update on how this soap works. I have made a couple batches of different concentrations.

• for windows and glass it streaks, not good
• counters, great
• toilet, works fine
• bathtub, works for soap scum with scrubbing and mildew
• floors, works fine

Thank you for reading.

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Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash