Monday, August 15, 2011

Laundry Soap

Ever since I discovered you could make your own laundry soap I have wanted to try it.  Recently we had a disaster at our house, I have no idea how this happened but I had a brand new bottle of (190 loads) laundry detergent, and spewed itself forth all over my laundry closet.  I wanted to cry, scream, curse, but I refrained.  I took us about 5 hours to clean it all up, it was 1/4 of an inch deep underneath the washer and the dryer.  And it’s a laundry closet that’s in a hallway, so there wasn’t a lot of room to pull the washer and dryer out to clean underneath them and then as soon as you move one of them,  more soap comes pouring out from under the other one.  ANYWAY HUGE MESS!!!!  SO after working on this mess for so long my nose was fried and I DID NOT want to smell laundry soap EVER AGAIN!!! Then I remembered that homemade laundry soap doesn’t smell so I thought it was a perfect opportunity to try it out.

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Anyway here we go. I used the following recipe and directions.  P.S. this stuff is SUPER thrifty to make, it works out to like 3 cents a load!!

You will need

2 cups of washing soda

2 cups of Borax

1 grated bar of Fels-Naptha soap. 

1/2 cup of Dawn dish soap

water

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Grate the Fels- Naptha really fine.  You’ll want it more fine than this when you make your soap. Or you’ll want to stab your eyes out waiting for it all to dissolve in your boiling water.

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I used one of my old pots and filled it with 1 quart of water and brought it to a boil then I added the not so finely grated bar soap. Heat until the bar soap is completely dissolved.

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When it was dissolved I poured it into this 5 gallon bucket.  And added the two cups of borax, and washing soda, and the 1/2 a cup of Dawn. Stir.

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Then add 2 gallons of water. I actually used my stick blender to give it a really good mixing it worked really well.

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I had an empty laundry soap container (thanks to the disaster) that I poured all my detergent into.  BUT the laundry soap supposedly needs to be shaken or stirred before each use, so you might not want to go this route, but it’s been fine for me.

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My makeshift funnel, cause I don’t have one.  Weird I know.

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RANDOM MOMMY TIP

So a couple of years ago I purchased this set of measuring spoons and cups at the Dollar Store.  I keep them in the garage and use them for measuring non food items, like fertilizer, borax, and what have you.  It’s been great totally recommend it.

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My children came up with the name of our laundry soap.  Clever, I know.

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So far it seems to be working fine, but it’s only been a week.  I’ll let you know if I hate it in the end.

2 comments:

Amy said...

I've been making mine for a while now and I love it! I add a bit of essence to make it smell pretty too.

Kendi said...

I am one of Stephanie's friends and have followed your blog for a little bit...I LOVE it! I thought that I would let you know that I have tried the liquid soap as well but have since turned to making a powder detergent that is easier and works much better. It calls for 1 1/3 c. borax, 1 1/3 c. washing soda, 1 bar of fels-naptha grated, and 1 1/3 c. oxyclean powder. I usually process the powders and bar of soap in my food processor to get a good powder consistency. For a regular size load of laundry you will need to use 2 T. of the detergent. (When I wash whites, I always add a scoop of oxyclean in addition to the homemade soap.) This is super cheap and super easy to store! This is an easy way to obtain a years supply of detergent!