Liquid Laundry Soap

 


















Laundry soap is expensive to buy, but beyond cheap to make :) I have been making my own laundry soap for a long time. Here is my recipe. A batch lasts me about 6 months, but I also do a load of cloth diapers every other day.

Liquid Laundry Soap

1 cup of Arm & Hammer Washing Soda
1/2 cup of Borax
1 bar of Fels-Naptha soap (I sometimes use homemade bar soap that I make just for this, not the same stuff I use in the shower though)

grate the bar of soap and put it in a pan with about 4 cups of water, put in over medium heat and dissolve the soap. Put this with the washing soda and borax in a 5 gallon bucket. Fill within a couple inches of the top with hot tap water. Stir until it's all dissovled. Place lid on bucket and let it sit overnight. It will gel up over night. They say to stir it with a spoon and break it up some, put some of it in a container (old laundry detergent bottles work) with half water and shake it every time before adding about 1/2 cup to every load of laundry.

Here is what I do after it gels up over night- put a stick blender (the same one I use to make bar soap) in it and turn it on high until it's nice and smooth. It's actually about the consistency of store bought laundry detergent at this point. Then since I have a super fancy washer that adds its own water*wink* I just add 1/4 of a cup of my detergent, throw the clothes in and close the lid. Simple as that. Mine stays in the 5 gallon bucket and just sits right by my washer, you however can do it however you like. A whole 5 gallon bucket of this stuff only costs me about $1.50. If that doesn't make you want to try it, there are also way fewer chemicals in it that store bought stuff.

Shanda