Make Laundry Soap

 Hello Readers. We all have laundry. If you are alive, you have clothes to wash. I wish it was not true but it is. If you have children, you will have even more laundry. Let's make inexpensive laundry soap with no dyes or scents to irritate sensitive skin. 

Life is expensive but your laundry soap doesn't need to be. 

I have heard of people making their own laundry soap but would it be difficult? Would it take a lot of time? Or a lot of effort? You will need to buy these 3 products. I spent approximately $12 to buy them where I live. The price may vary where you live but it should be close to my costs. I used one full bar of Fels-Naptha and 1 cup of the Borax, 1 cup of the Washing Soda and approximately 4 gallons of water. 

 

The Fels-Naptha is basically a bar of soap. It was under $2 at my local store. The bar of soap needs to be melted and dissolved into water. To make this easier, I grated the bar of soap like cheese. I used my cheese grater and it was as easy as grating a block of cheese. 

 

You could also use a food processor or a mandolin slicer. Use whatever you have. The small pieces of soap will dissolve much faster than a whole bar of soap. How you cut the bar up doesn't really matter. It had a mild soap small but no perfume or strong scent. 

 

I mixed the shavings of soap with very hot water. You can "cook" the water and soap on the stove or you can put the shavings into a very large container and add the hot water to the container and mix until the shavings dissolve. It only took about 5 minutes to dissolve. You will need a container that can hold about 4 gallons of liquid. 

 

I added a cup of the Borax to the hot soapy water. I stirred well to mix it in. It mixed and dissolved easily.

 

Next, I added a cup of the Washing Soda. (This is NOT baking soda.) I mixed this powder in too. I added more water until I had about 4 gallons of soapy water mixture. (You can make 3-5 gallons of mixture.) It thickens and has a syrup consistency. 

As the powders dissolved, the mixture became cloudy and then ...

 

 It will become clear again. There was a bit of bubbling and foaming but not much. The powders did not add any scent to the mix, it was almost without a scent at all. I let my mixture cool. It was very hot at this point, be careful. 

 

When the mixture was cool, I poured my laundry soap into bottles. I did not have a large container with a lid. I "cooked" my soap on my stove in a stock pot but I couldn't store it in an open stock pot forever. I used empty bottles and jars with lids that I had on hand. If you have a big 5 gallon bucket with a lid, that would be ideal for holding all of this. 

 

Any container with a lid will work. The small plastic container would be ideal to carry with you if you need to go to a laundry mat or laundry room to do your laundry. Whatever containers you use, you will have saved a lot of money with this recipe. *NOTE- The solution may thicken more and be difficult to get out without a scoop, use 1/2 cup for small loads and 1 cup for extra large loads.

 

I used my new soap in a load of dirty towels. I picked and cut up a mountain of strawberries to make jam so there was red strawberry juice on these towels. My washer is a high efficiency so I wondered if the soap would wash well. Let's test it. 

 

The towels came out nice and clean. I was happy with the soap and the process was not difficult. I found the process easy and quick enough to keep it up. Thanks for reading along, now go make some for yourself.