A Penny A Load!

I have a great post I'm working on, but the laundry soap got brought up this week - and since we are dogsitting this weekend, - I think I'm going to take the opportunity to make this be the weekly post!  I feel like I'm cheating a bit, but I hope this will be useful for you, especially in these economic times.

I've been making my own detergent for about 2 or 3 years now.  I can afford laundry detergent.  I don't know why I keep doing this!  I guess because I can.  I also can my own beans, but I could buy them at the store too.  I like being self-reliant.  I can make yogurt, too, but I don't really think I save money on that one, so I don't do it.  But I could if I had to! And I love that feeling, of knowing I am resourceful.

I posted on my Facebook page this week that I make my own detergent and promised I'd post my recipe here. 

Ingredients:

3.1 oz bar Ivory soap

1 cup Borax

1/2 cup Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda (found at Kroger)

Water

Tools:

5 gallon container

Cheese grater

small bowl

stove pot

long stirring spoon (I got mine at a restaurant supply store.)

Instructions:

Pour 5 cups of water in the stove pot and heat it just shy of boiling.  You want the water hot enough to be able to melt the soap, but not hot enough to boil over.  While the water is warming up, use the cheese grater to shred the bar of soap.  Add the shredded soap to the pot of heater water and stir the mixture until the soap is completely melted.

Once the soap is melted, pour 3 gallons of hot water into in 5-gallon bucket.  To the 3 gallons of hot water, stir in the melted soap mixture.  Once it's mixed, add the 1/2 cup super washing soda and stir until it's dissolved.  Pour in 1 cup borax and stir again until dissolved.  Lots of stirring!

You can add essential oils to your laundry detergent to make it smell good, but I never have.

Cover the container and place it somewhere it won't be disturbed.  Let it cool overnight.  It will begin to gel as it cools.  You'll want to put it in smaller containers.  I stir mine once it is "set" though because it does better in my new washer.  There will not be suds in your washer using homemade laundry detergent.  This was hard for me to get used to.  I don't like to pour it directly on my clothes either, as it has left white "residue."  I put the soap in the washer and let it run for a bit and then add the clothes.  Works great that way.

Use 4 oz, or 1/2 cup, per load.  One recipe yields 442 oz which should get you through 110 loads of laundry!  The breakdown, price-wise, is about a penny per load.  Not bad.