Liquid Laundry Soap

This morning I decided to finally make up a batch of liquid laundry soap. I've been wanting to do this for a while but, not wanting to spend money on something new to store it in (remember...be frugal and recycle!), I waited until I had emptied out a few vinegar jugs as well as a large kitty litter container. Even if I don't use all of these, they do come in handy for other things, so I'll store the the unused containers on the shelf in my laundry room for future use.

There are all kinds of recipes for this on the internet, but the one I chose was here at Rhonda's wonderful Down-To-Earth blog. She also has pictures along with her recipe that you might want to look at, too.

1/2 cup Washing Soda (not baking soda)
1/2 cup Twenty Mule Team Borax
1 cup grated Fels Naptha or Zote laundry soap

Note: One thing before I go any further concerning the grated soap. It seemed like it took FOREVER to completely dissolve, so I decided that next time I will put the grated soap in my food processor to chop it into finer pieces to cut down on time!

In a saucepan, pour in 1 quart of water and add the Washing Soda, Borax, and grated soap. Heat this and stir until everything is completely dissolved. Just make sure you don't do this on a heat high enough to boil or you will have a big mess to clean up!
Next, pour 8 quarts of cold water into a clean bucket (I used a 5-gallon bucket we bought at Home Depot ages ago).
Once the hot soap mixture is done, pour it into the bucket and stir. You'll notice that it will start to gel fairly quick and that's ok. When you fill your containers, leave a good 2 to 3 inch space at the top so you can shake the liquid before each use because as it sits, the soap will separate but that's normal.

   You can see that the larger jug held most of the liquid!

I don't have the exact cost of this, but my husband and I did a rough estimate. For a little over 2 gallons of laundry liquid we figured it cost somewhere around $1.75 to $2.00. Compare that to an equal amount of the big name brand liquids and the savings is tremendous, not to mention that you're only using a 1/4 cup per load (maybe a 1/2 cup for larger, heavily soiled loads).

For me, the cost savings also goes further because I no longer use liquid fabric softener or dryer sheets. Apart from being expensive, they have a lot of chemicals, dyes, and fragrances that can irritate your skin and really, just aren't necessary! I use a cup of plain white vinegar in the rinse cycle. Vinegar not only kills germs, it also cuts any remaining soap from your clothing AND is a natural fabric softener. Even taking clothes out of the washer, I can barely get a hint of vinegar and once the clothes are dry, there is no odor at all (just in case you were worried about that).

If you happen to notice that your whites are graying slightly after a while, Rhonda suggests adding a scoop of Oxy Clean, or something similar, to the wash load every so often to remedy the problem.

Please let me know how this works for you, especially if you've never made something like this before. I've done a few loads of clothes while writing this, and everything looks wonderfully clean and smells great!

Happy washing!   :)

An Early Start!

I can't remember the last time I actually slept through the night and got some honest, restful sleep and this morning was no exception. I woke up because my left knee hurt like I had hyper-extended it or maybe I was just sleeping in an awkward position, so I got up. I suffer from Fibromyalgia, so I often wake up a number of times through the night due to pain, and usually it's a matter of rolling over in bed and then it's off to sleep again. Generally if I actually get up, it's to get something to drink and then I climb back in bed, but once in a great while I may get up around 3am and I'm UP. This morning I woke up at 12:30!
Anyhow, I've done a bit of cleaning up in the kitchen, made a pot of coffee, have more laundry going, bread dough rising, and now I'm here. My husband, Bill, got up briefly and came out of the bedroom looking at me rather confused, asking how long I'd been up and chuckled slightly when I told him and what I've been doing. Bless his heart, I know he worries about me, but he's used to all of this and knows when I get tired enough later in the day I'll lay down.
I had posted a while back about making your own laundry powder, and I've been very pleased with it. It's not hard to make, it's quite inexpensive, and it doesn't take much time to put together. But I've been curious about the liquid version and think I might make a batch either later today or tomorrow and see how I like it. Another reason I want to do this is to try it as a stain remover for laundry, and as a base for a household cleaner I read that Rhonda posted over at her blog, Down To Earth. If you're interested, the recipe for her liquid laundry soap is here. Just remember that if you try any of her recipes and like them, please let her know, and if you mention or post them on your blog please let folks know where you got it from. I know.......there are so many cleaning recipes out there on the internet but I'm a firm believer in giving credit where credit's due. Thanks.
Time for me to jump off of here for now, but I promise I will revisit the liquid laundry in another post and try to include some pictures to go along with it as well.
Have a great day!  

Making Laundry Soap Powder

I'm testing a laundry soap powder I put together yesterday and I'm rather excited about it! Yes, I can get excited about doing the laundry....guess I'm kind of funny that way.   :)
I was inspired by all the recipes I checked out on the internet, and this is what I came up with.......

1 bar Fels-Naptha laundry bar soap, grated
1 cup Arm & Hammer Washing Soda (not the same as baking soda)
1 cup 20 Mule Team Borax
1 cup Arm & Hammer Baking Soda
1 cup Oxy Clean

All of the ingredients I found were at Walmart and are cheaper there than the grocery store, but if you don't have a Walmart nearby, you can still find everything at most grocery stores. You just might pay a bit more for them.
Once I grated the Fels-Naptha (which has a nice citrus-like scent), I put it and all the other ingredients together in a plastic container, mixed well with a spoon and that was it. It's ready to go!
I'll sit down later and compare the cost per usage to the name-brand laundry soap I've been using and I'll also let you know how this particular recipe worked on our clothes, but will save that for a later post.
I would really like to hear from those of you who make your own laundry soap as well, because I'd love to hear how it's worked for you and, if you have any advice you'd like to pass on, please feel free to share it!
Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you're all having a great weekend!