Home Made Laundry Soap - Part Deux

I have been making my own home made laundry soap for some time, and I love it. It saves us so much money when compared to store bought laundry soap, and I believe it cleans just as well as the leading brands. Plus I know what is in my laundry soap and don't have to worry about chemicals that might irritate mine and my daughters' sensitive skin.

I know there are LOTS of websites and Blogs about how to make laundry soap. In fact I already have one from way back when. But I have a few friends who have asked me to show them how I make it. I don't have time to show each of them individually (I wish I did girls! Sorry), and since I tweaked my recipe some what I thought I would make another post "how to make it" now.

Home made laundry soap does not take a lot of ingredients. Simply Borax, Washing Soda, bar soap, and water.

There are 3 different types I use, depending on what I have on hand, or which store I happen to be shopping at when I need to pick up ingredients for laundry soap. I buy the Fels-Naptha and the Kirk's Castile soap at Reasor's. I buy the Zote bar soap at Warehouse Market or Latin American grocery stores.

I've shown all 3 of them below.


My recipe is:

1/2 cup Borax
1/2 cup Washing Soda (not Baking Soda, there is a difference)
1/3 bar of soap.
Water

Here I am using 1/6 of a bar of Zote Soap, and 1/6 of a bar of Fels-Naptha. This is the combination I like the best. But if you only have 1 bar of soap, use 1/3 of a bar.

You will also need a medium-large pot, a plastic spoon, and a 2 gallon bucket with a lid.

If you have an old pot you can keep around for just making soap, that would be best. Do NOT use a cast iron pot you normally use. My experience tells me if you use cast iron, you will be tasting soap in whatever you cook for quite a while.

Use a food processor to grate your soap, or hand grate your soap, as fine as you can grate it. Place the grated soap into the pot.


Fill a tea kettle with water, and heat to boiling. Pour it into the pot. I pour it over the hand grater to melt any soap that may be stuck on the grater. (Yes I have a spotted cow tea kettle, and I love it!)


Place the pot on the stove top over medium-low heat, warm and stir frequently until all the soap is dissolved.

While the soap is on the stove top, measure the 1/2 cup Borax and 1/2 cup Washing Soda into your bucket.


When the bar soap is dissolved in the water, pour the mixture into the bucket, and stir well to thoroughly mix the soap, water, and dry ingredients. It will look like a runny "Icee" mixture, and frothy on top. Stir until the dry ingredients are completely dissolved.


Refill your pot with more HOT water. I refill the tea kettle and boil more water. Pour it back into the empty pot to rinse the pot of any residual soap. Pour it into the bucket. Add more hot water if needed to fill the bucket. At this point you can add any essential oils for fragrance. I like to add 5-10 drops of Tea Tree Oil.


This is what it looks like in its liquid state. You can use it immediately if you need to do laundry right away. If you don't get all of the soap completely dissolved, don't worry. A few pieces floating won't hurt it.

Set it in a place where it can sit safely away from your littles. Stir it occasionally as it cools. It will slowly transform from a liquid to a gel, to almost solid. Keep stirring it to make sure the soap is evenly distributed through the mixture.

I use 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup per wash load, depending on the size of the load and how dirty it is. For fabric softener, I use 1/2 cup of white distilled vinegar. My clothes come out clean and soft.

Do you make your own laundry soap? Or do you make your own home made cleaners? Share in the comments below, or share it on your blog and leave your link in comments!

Blessings

Angela

Home made laundry soap

I've been making my own laundry soap for a while, and I've really enjoyed it. For me, there's something therapeutic about hand grating a bar of soap and using it to create a less expensive alternative to store bought laundry detergent.

I usually just grate up the soap and make a powdered laundry detergent using this recipe:

• 1 bar Zote Soap
• 1 bar Ivory Soap
• 3 cups Borax
• 3 cups Washing Soda

Grate Zote soap and Ivory soap with a fine blade of a food processor or a cheese grater. Mix in borax and washing soda and keep in air tight container. Use 1-2 tblspn per washerload.

My last batch of laundry soap, I had found a recipe to use castille laundry soap, and I wanted to try to combine the two. So I made up this recipe:

• 1/4 cup liquid lavendar castille soap
• 1/3 bar Zote soap, fine grated
• 1 cup borax
• 1 cup washing soda

Pour castille soap into the bottom of the bowl. Add 1/2 cup each of borax and washing soda. Mix in castille soap and stir to well incorporate the soap into the borax and washing soda. Add grated Zote soap, borax and washing soda. Mix well. Keep in air tight container. Use 1-2 tblspn per wahserload.

I liked this version. My clothes seemed to come out really clean, with a light lavendar smell, and soft.

But with both powedered versions, I did find that the soap didn't dissolve completely in cold washer loads. So I wanted to make a "liquid" version to see if that would help.

So yesterday I tried my hand at making a super concentrated version. I used a stove top sauce pan, a wire whisk, a plastic spoon, and a 2 gallon pickle bucket I heisted from Applebee's my last night as a manager (well cleaned and aired out of course).

My ingredients were:

• 1/2 cup liquid castille soap (optional)
  
• 1/2 bar Zote soap, fine grated
• 1/2 bar Ivory soap, fine grated
  
• 1 1/2 cup Borax
• 1 1/2 cup Washing soda

While I was grating the soap I filled a tea kettle with water and heated the water over high heat. I grated the soap and placed it in a stove top saucepan, and turned the heat onto medium, and then poured in the hot water to cover the grated soap. The hot water melted most of the soap, but I kept it over medium low heat till all of the soap was melted.

I filled the 2 gallon bucket half full with hot water, and measured in the Borax and Washing soda. Then I used the wire whisk to stir the water and till the borax and washing soda was dissolved. Then I poured in the melted soap and mixed again. I filled the bucket with more water to 3-4" from the top. Then I measured in the castille soap and stirred with the plastic spoon.

I let it sit on the counter to cool and gel. Every 30 minutes or so I would give it a good stir to help it gel evenly. After about 2 hours it had cooled almost completely and was almost solid. I stirred it one more time to break up the solid.

When I did my laundry yesterday I used 1/4 cup per washer load. My clothes come out clean, but they don't have the lavendar smell I was hoping they would from the castille soap. I think I may tweek my recipe by adding Lavendar essential oil drops.