Friday, September 2, 2011

Homemade Laundry Soap

Say What?? Homemade Laundry Soap for only 1 Cent a load? and guess what it works quite nicely!! I'm feelin a little like Laura Ingalls LoL. I found this recipe through Pinterest. Here is the recipe on the duggarfamily website. I figured if this family of 20+ uses it, it must be working well. My only issue was finding enough containers to put it in.. 10 gallons = alot of soap ;)

4 Cups - hot tap water
1 Fels-Naptha soap bar
1 Cup - Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda*
½ Cup Borax

- Grate bar of soap and add to saucepan with water. Stir continually over medium-low heat until soap dissolves and is melted.

-Fill a 5 gallon bucket half full of hot tap water. Add melted soap, washing soda and Borax. Stir well until all powder is dissolved. Fill bucket to top with more hot water. Stir, cover and let sit overnight to thicken.

-Stir and fill a used, clean, laundry soap dispenser half full with soap and then fill rest of way with water. Shake before each use. (will gel)

-Optional: You can add 10-15 drops of essential oil per 2 gallons. Add once soap has cooled. Ideas: lavender, rosemary, tea tree oil.

-Yield: Liquid soap recipe makes 10 gallons.
-Top Load Machine- 5/8 Cup per load (Approx. 180 loads)
-Front Load Machines- ¼ Cup per load (Approx. 640 loads)
*Arm & Hammer "Super Washing Soda" - in some stores or may be purchased online here (at Meijer.com). Baking Soda will not work, nor will Arm & Hammer Detergent - It must be sodium carbonate!!
Linked to: thirtyhandmadedays

2 comments:

Army Wife Quilter said...

how does this work for sensitive skin?

Unknown said...

Wondering why it wouldn't work to use half the water & then use half the amount for each load... concentrated homemade laundry detergent(!) and only half the storage area... of course the hard part would be to convince my hubby that "more" is NOT "better"... maybe "reconstitute" to regular strength a bottle at a time when time to use... and I am TOTALLY going to save my (already-bought) laundry detergent containers for re-use! (didn't mean to ramble, just really excited about this post & can't help "brainstorming" with myself about it!!)