I found this great recipe for homemade laundry soap and I have used it and love it. I used to use Tide and I loved it but it is so dang expenive. I have trying using the cheaper brands of soap but found them to not work as well and I have had several friends who swear by making their own. I honestly thought that it was weird and honestly would not hold up to Tide but I quikckly found that it is just as great as tide, a whole lot cheaper and only takes a little bit of my time to do. So here is the recipe and a link to the step by step directions so that you can give it a try and let me know what your thoughts on it are.
The Simple Dollar: Homemade Laundry Soap Recipe
1/2 cup borax (I use 20 Mule Team)
1 bar soap (I use whatever’s cheap)
Approximately 3 gallons water
You’ll also need a container of some sort to store this in (five gallon bucket with a lid), something to stir it (large wooden spoon), another pot to boil soapy water in, and a grater to cut up the soap. First thing, put about four cups of water into the pan and put it on the stove on high until it’s at boiling, then lower the heat until it’s simmering.
While it’s heating up, take grate the bar of soap. When the water is boiling, start throwing in the soap. Just a little bit at a time, then stirring it until it’s dissolved.
Stir the soapy water with a spoon until all of the soap is dissolved. Eventually, the water will take on the color of the soap you added, albeit paler. In the end, you’ll have some very warm soap soup.
In the end, you’ll have some very warm soap soup:
Next, get out your large container and add three gallons of warm tap water to it.
To this bucket add a cup of the washing soda and the soap solution you made and stir. The borax is optional – some people say that it’s too harsh, but I’ve always found that it did a good job getting clothes clean and fresh smelling, so I recommend adding a half cup of borax to the mix.
After stirring, you’ll have a bucket full of vaguely soapy water:
At this point, let the soap sit for 24 hours, preferably with a lid on it.
When you take off the lid, you’ll find any number of things, depending on the type of soap you used and the water you used. It might be firm, like Jello; it might be very watery; it might even be like liquid laundry detergent. Just stir it up a bit and it’s ready to be used.
Don’t worry about the texture – it’s completely fine. Just use a measuring cup and use one cup of the detergent per load of laundry. If it’s got “globs” in it, get a mix of the water and of the globs – it’ll break up very quickly in the washing machine and wash your clothes well. If you’re still concerned, you can mash up the globs quite easily, but I saw no reason to do so.
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