How to Make DIY Shower Jellies

Amber is a single mom on a fixed income, a couponer, a DIYer, and an accounting student who knows the value of her pennies.

I've noticed a huge new trend in shower items: shower jellies!

Of course, being of such frugal nature, I just can't wrap my head around spending $18.00 on a 3.5 oz shower jelly. That's insane.

But, I want my six-year-old to be excited about taking a bath, and, well, I like to feel like I'm spoiling myself in the shower as well.

And thanks to Pinterest, there is literally a do-it-myself version of everything available! So I was super excited to try making my own.

The Research:

So I did my due diligence, researched a few different methods and recipes, and came up with one of my own.

I don't own any pigments, and I have stained my bathtub (and my child, but she thought blue skin was pretty awesome) using food coloring.

So, I thought, why not tea?

I've had some Guava Cadabara tea hanging out in my cupboard for...oh...a year or two anyway, I just can't warm up to the flavor.

Why not use it in my jellies? It smells good, I just don't enjoy drinking it.

The Players:

• 2 packages gelatin, unflavored and clear
• 3/4 C boiling water
• 1/2 C castile soap
• 1 tsp salt
• Molds for your mixture
• Tea leaves

The How To:

1. If you are going to use a silicon mold, I would strongly suggest placing in on a cutting board so you can easily move it to the fridge. We used muffin tins. They worked wonderfully.
2. Next we put our tea into our Pyrex mixing bowl, and poured our water over top.
3. Next we added our gelatin. Whisk it until dissolved.
4. Now it's time for the castile soap and salt. Give it a good stir!
5. If you have air bubbles, spritz with some rubbing alcohol. We did not have any rubbing alcohol, but mommy had some vodka! Sadly, it didn't work. You'll need the rubbing alcohol.
6. Toss them in the fridge until they solidify. This took about three hours for us. BAM! Shower jellies for pennies.

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What Didn't Work

Our gelatin was about two years expired. I'm not sure if that's why we had weird chunks. My Dear Little wants to try again tomorrow, but this time with strawberry rhubarb tea. Why not?

I used two teaspoons of leaves for this recipe and put them in the tea ball and didn't take it out until we were ready to pour it into the molds. We did have some color and a wee bit of scent, but not enough to make much of an impression. My Dear Little kept saying it was "kind of a funny color."

When I emptied my tea ball, I found a "special" kind of soap inside the ball, all the leaves and fruits congealed to each other.

We decided next time we're still going to use the expired gelatin, because I'm too cheap to throw that out. But maybe next time we'll use an immersion blender and she can blend while I sprinkle the powder in.

Also, we think maybe we'll nix the tea ball and throw the leaves and fruits into the mixture. I am concerned about the chunks in the tub though. I have however, seen those things that you put in the drain to strain out hair and chunks for bath tubs at the dollar store. Perhaps I'll invest in one of those.

Alternatively, we could throw the leaves into a food processor and grind them up real good.

Thoughts on that?

The End Result

They do have a nice, rich lather and they leave my skin feeling pretty nice, and that's what I like in a soap.

Do not leave them anywhere too warm though, they melt down into a goopy puddle.

My Dear Little took one into the bath. It dissolved in no time. She was pretty disappointed. But I guess when you consider the ingredients, you can't really expect anything else.

And they were fun to make. We will be making them again.

The Cost Breakdown

This content is accurate and true to the best of the author’s knowledge and is not meant to substitute for formal and individualized advice from a qualified professional.

© 2017 Amber Joy