Homemade Laundry Soap

If you're a frequent visitor to my blog you know I love making things and have many creative interests.

Since the beginning of 2012 I've been working on becoming more self sufficient here at home making a lot of my own cleaning, health care related, etc. products.  My latest venture is making my own homemade laundry soap.  The price of everything we use around the house is rising and I'm tired of giving our hard earned money away for something I think maybe I can do better!  

Pictured above is an upcycled ice cream bucket filled with my homemade laundry soap.  I made a label for it on my computer and cut it out with a Spellbinders Grand Circle die, stamped some cute images from the Paper Smooches Squeaky Clean clear stamp set then colored them.  The recipe is on the label for the next time I need to make it I won't have to go looking for the recipe.  

You might be wondering why the Heinz Vinegar is there with the laundry soap bucket? 

That's my fabric softener.  I use a Downy Ball and fill it about 1/3 rd of the way with regular white vinegar (the store brand is fine) drop it in each load of wash, transfer the clothes to the dryer and use no other fabric softener.  Our clothes smell wonderful and have no static cling and our towels are super absorbent because they are no longer coated with the store bought fabric softeners that "waterproof" your clothes and towels.  The white vinegar is also good for our washing machine, we have extremely hard water in our area and the white vinegar helps clean away the minerals that build up and shorten the machines life span.

 

I wanted to show you how much laundry soap you'll get from the recipe I have.  I mixed it up in a large kitchen trash can, a 5 gallon bucket would have worked nice but I didn't have one.  My storage container is a 25 pound kitty litter container that I washed out and saved.  When my ice cream bucket gets low I'll fill it up again out of my big storage container.

I've told my friends about the homemade laundry soap and you know they want to try it so I've used small peanut butter jars I've cleaned and saved for samples.  I've added a label to the jar with the recipe so they can make their own if they like it too!  

I have the recipe for you below and I need to tell you that it is not my original recipe, I came across it at Being Creative's blog.  The laundry soap works great and it cost about $15.00 for all of the ingredients.  I dated my big container to see how long it will last our family.  I'm thinking quite awhile using 2 tablespoons per load of laundry!  I bought a 2 tablespoon coffee scoop to use for this at our local big box store. 

 Laundry Soap

1 - 4 lb 12 oz box Borax (2.15 kg or 76 oz)

1 - 4 lb box Arm & Hammer Baking Soda (1.81 kg)

1  box Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda 55 oz (3 lb 7 oz)

3 bars of Fels-Naptha soap

3.5 lbs. Oxy Clean - optional but worth it

You should be able to find all of these items at your local grocery store.

Use 1-2 Tablespoons per load, it doesn't seem like enough but this recipe has NO fillers like laundry soaps we buy at the store so you really only need 1-2 Tablespoons.

Method:  Grate your Fels-Naptha soap, I used a food processor but you can use your hand held grater, which ever you have and are comfortable using. If you use a HE washer you may want to run the mix through the grater again to get an even finer mix.  The Fels-Naptha soap shavings will dissolve in your washer easily even if you use cold water.  I add my laundry soap to the washer first with the cold water filling then add the clothes.

Mix all ingredients in a clean tall kitchen trash can or 5 gallon bucket. 

It wouldn't hurt to do this part outside, it gets a little dusty! Once everything is mixed store your laundry soap in a covered container so it doesn’t dry out.  

The recipe makes about 2 gallons worth of nice quality laundry soap.

Thanks for visiting my blog today!

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