Brooding On

DIY Direct Foam

Don't you just love Dawn dish soap?!  Since I've begun making most of my cleaning products, I only need to stock a few items in my cleaning closet.  Borax, Washing Soda, Vinegar, and Dawn are mainstays.  You aren't using Dawn as a stain treatment, carpet cleaner, or shower cleaner?  Do a Pinterest search and be amazed by its many possible uses!  

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I'm not sure why, but I can almost always find blue Dawn on sale in at least one sale paper EVERY week, so it's pretty economical, too.  

As I was washing dishes at church the other day, I fell in love with Dawn Direct Foam.  I'd never bought it myself before, but I was quickly seeing how much water I saved by not having to make up a bowl or sink-full of soapy water and instead directly squirting each pot with a pump of soapy foam .  I'm always on the lookout for ways to conserve water so this caught my attention.  I wondered whether my tried and true way of making foaming hand soap out of liquid soap would work in this application.  Good news:  it does.

So, get yourself some Dawn and an empty foaming hand soap bottle.  I got all of mine (we have one at every sink in the house)  at one of those Bath and Body Works 4 for whatever deals years ago.  I suppose you could suck it up and buy some Direct Foam just this once so that you'll have the bottle once it's used up.

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Fill your empty bottle with about this much dish soap.  Yep, that's really all it takes.

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Fill the bottle the rest of the way up with water, screw on the pump, and gently rock it back and forth until it looks well mixed.  Commence with your cleaning of dishes!

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I hate feeling duped as a consumer, so I really like little tricks like this one.  Dawn Direct Foam can be expensive.  I forgot to price check it out when I was at the grocery the other day, but Amazon has it listed for $12.99.  Can that possibly be right?!?!  

I can get a bottle of blue Dawn on sale for $.99 anytime and only use a fraction of the bottle to create my own foam.  It's probably not even 1/10 of the bottle, but, to be conservative, let's just say it is.  That comes out to about 10 cents per bottle of homemade direct foam.  No thanks, Amazon. You know I love you, but I think I'll make my own this time!

And, don't doubt your foam's ability to cut through grease and other tough stuff.  It passed a pretty big test in my kitchen today as it cut right through all the oils used in my soap making.