Making Laundry Soap!!

January 30, 2009

After reading about my friend Laura's detergent making adventures over at Life's Sweetest Blessings, I thought I'd give it a go. I looked all over the place for washing soda, but Hubs finally found it in a small grocery store in a small town. Go figure!

The recipe is on Laura's blog, here, and I hope she doesn't mind if I just copy and paste it here!

Ingredients:

sm. bar of Ivory or Sunlight Soap

1/2 cup Washing Soda

1 cup Borax

Method:

1. Shave soap into slivers

2. Put in saucepan with 5 cups water bring just to a boil, stir until all is melted

3. Pour 3 gallons hot water into a 5 gallon container

4. Pour melted soap mixture into 5 gallon container, stir well

5. Add 1/2 cup washing soda, stir until dissolved

6. Add 1 cup Borax, stir until dissolved

7. Let stand overnight, will gel when cool. Will be lumpy and watery

8. Use 1/2 cup per load

Here are the pictures of my own detergent making adventure!

The ingredients:

Shave the soap:

Here is the soap starting to warm up on the stove:

all melted!

adding the washing soda. Adding the borax looked just the same, but with a bigger measuring cup haha

stirring it all up!

and then it went on the dryer in the chilly back room to cool down and gel overnight!

I am very happy with the end product! It cleans quite well, and has no odor. There's ALOT of it, so I need to find some storage containers (Didn't quite think that one through LOL) I am sure I will make this again, and above all, it saves me money so I am happy!