For quite a few years now, I have been making my own laundry detergent. The obvious, number one, reason was to save money. With no less than 4 boys at home, I was going through bottles and bottles of soap only to build up gunk on the inside of my washing machine and the clothes wouldn't get clean and to top it all off they faded terribly after only a few washes.
With money savings being my ultimate goal, I set out on a journey to find homemade laundry soap. At that time there was no such thing as Pinterest... research was all on my own. I came across ONE recipe. I had searched for days and days and came up with one recipe. I thought, "Great! If it is this hard to find a recipe to make homemade laundry soap, I am sure it will be even harder to find the ingredients!" But to my wonderful surprise I found all three ingredients "together" in the laundry isle of the grocery store. I just figured it was due to living in a highly populated Mennonite community and thought if we ever moved back to Missouri I would just be out of luck!
Once home with the ingredients to make my first batch of laundry soap, I was set! I grated my soap bar and added it to water on the stove with the other two ingredients and set it to boil, thinking this is so easy. My ADHD personality left the room for who knows what and I heard the pot boiling over. What a mess! I removed the pan from the burner, cleaned up the mess around the burner and placed the pan back on the burner to melt the ingredients. Once I carefully watched the pot until it began to boil, I lowered the heat, stirring occasionally, until almost everything was dissolved. I then followed the rest of the instructions to the letter and the detergent was finally made. After letting it sit over night and stirring occasionally, I set out to do my first load of laundry. I was amazed. It not only was easy to make (without the mess of course), it got the dirty jeans clean! Woohoo! I felt like a super mom! Over time I have adapted the original recipe and the order of processes to my own needs and usability! My recipe is as follows...
1.5 bars of Fels Naptha soap
1/2 c. Borax
1 c. Arm & Hammer Washing Soda
- Grate the Fels Naptha soap with a cheese grater. If I make a double batch I usually use the electric shredder. Don't use a cheap one, it will most-likely break.
- In a medium saucepan, combine 2 c. water with the shredded soap and slowly bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. This is the part where it can become a mess if you do not watch the stove top. Once boiling, turn down to a simmer and cook until soap is completely dissolved. Don't forget to stir, otherwise it can burn to the bottom of the pan.
- Add Borax and Arm & Hammer Washing Soda to the pan, stirring until dissolved.
- Fill a five gallon bucket half-full with the hottest water your faucet will put out. Stir in soap mixture well, then continue to fill the bucket up with hot water until it reaches inches of the rim. Stir well. Cover and let mixture sit, stirring every couple of hours. This mixture will thicken overnight.
- In the morning you can do one of two things; either put the bucket in your laundry room and use it out of there OR fill a laundry soap container half full of soap and the rest with hot water, mixing well before use. If you use the diluted version, use 1 laundry soap lid full to an extra large load. If using the undiluted version, only use 1/2 as much. I personally use it straight out of the bucket.
This recipe makes 10 gallons of soap for under $2.00 per recipe.
