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Monday, December 29, 2008

Make it Yourself - Laundry Soap



Recipe #2
Laundry Soap

I have been using this laundry soap recipe for a few months now, and it works great too. Again, I have well and septic and it is safe for septic systems, and good with well water too.

What you need:

5 Gallon bucket
long spoon (wood or plastic)
spaghetti pot
measuring cups
empty gallon milk jug
empty laundry soap containers (optional)
1/3 bar Fels Naphtha soap
1/2 cup washing soda
1/2 cup borax
lots of water



How to make it:



I could never find a bar of Fels Naphtha soap, so I used 1 full bar of regular soap. Try to use soap without any lotions, scents and as little color as possible. Grate the bar of soap. I used my stand mixer with the grated cheese attachment (real fun!). In the spaghetti pot add 6 cups of water and the grated soap. Cook, stirring constantly, until is melts. Add the washing soda and the borax, and stir again until they are dissolved. Turn your sink onto hot water and let run until it gets real hot. At this point remove from the heat and pour the whole pot into the 5 gallon bucket. On top of the soap mixture add 4 cups of HOT water, stir. Add one full gallon of water (milk jug full), plus another 6 cups of water. Stir, stir, stir.





Let the soap sit over night, cover to keep animals & little ones out of it! It will turn into a gelly gloppy mess. Stir one more time. I then use a large funnel and a measuring cup to pour it into my old laundry soap containers. Be careful not to fill it to the top.





When you go to use the soap, I just give it a good shake to loosen up the gel again, and fill the top cap. Just like regular store bought laundry soap. If you have room, you could also just have the 5 gallon bucket in your laundry room, and use a half cup measuring cup for each load.





I do not have a powdered laundry soap recipes, due to having a front loading machine. But I can check into them, and have one of my neighbors do the testing of it. I will let you know at a later date about it. If anybody has a fabric softener recipe, that is what I really need next.





Next week: basic cleaning solutions.

5 comments:

Michelle said...

Michelle - I have heard that you can just put vinegar (apple cider) into the softener spot on the front loader and it works like a charm - let me know how it goes! If you don't like the scent, try adding some essential oil like lemon or lavendar.

RockerWife said...

I've made this soap many a time - I use my kitchen maid cheese grater thingy to grate the fels naptha. We are lucky to find it at our local market. One thing I might mention is that this soap, though great for every day washing will not get whites white and after a bit, you will find your whites a bit dingy. For some, it doesn't matter.

The best part of this soap is the smell. It is heavenly!

PikaPikaChick said...

Powdered laundry detergent:

1 cup borax
1 cup washing soda
1 bar Fels Naptha

Grind it up in a food processor. Use 1 Tbsp per load (or 2 if it's a heavy load). It's safe for HE front loaders -- just use about a tsp.

Fabric softener: add 1/4 cup white vinegar to the rinse cycle. For reals.

Anonymous said...

thanks for the recipes.Gayle at thegrocerycartchallenge dot blogspot has recipes for fabric softener/dryer sheets.Also recipes for windex,409, and disenfecting wipes.

Natalie said...

I use powdered detergent.

Homemade Laundry Detergent (Powdered)

1 cup washing soda
1 cup Borax
2 cups finely grated soap (I used Fels Naphtha, but you can use any spare bits you have around the house.)

Here is the link to the post about it:

http://kyrepomanager.blogspot.com/2008/11/homemade-laundry-detergent.html

I have since used it with my normal laundry and I love it. I find that I do not need fabric softner with it. Just a dryer sheet thrown in. And I cut those in half so I get twice as many. If you have any questions I would love to help answer them.

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