I know everyone pretty much has done this by now, but just in case you are late to the party, here’s a little how-to. It’s as easy as can be and once you buy some of the ingredients, you have massive amounts of detergent you can use. Laundry for days… and days… and days… which is pretty much accurate for our home.
Truth.
For a bit, I got out of the habit of making any. Don’t ask me why, sometimes you just forget to do it, and then you need some and don’t have it. One of my goals for this year is to be more on ‘top’ of things. Not allowing myself to get so far behind.
I hope it works out. I am going to try hard at it.
Ok, back to the soap.
Here’s what you need to do… It’s easy peasy and it doesn’t take a lot of ingredients. It’s so common now that you can find all these ingredients pretty much anywhere now. Back when I started making my soap, I had to order them off the internet. They didn’t keep Super Washing Soda in stock. Nor did the stores have Fels-Naptha. Which by the way, I really like. I have used other soaps and they work just fine. Ivory works, I used it back when the littles were still in cloth diapers because I thought it would be more gentle on the diaper, therefore more gentle on their skin. But honestly, I think the Fels-Naptha would have been fine if I had been able to find it, as well.
Here’s the things you need:
1 bar Fels-Naptha or other soap
1 cup washing soda (NOT baking soda! Baking soda will not work)
1/2 cup Borax
Water
grater
5 gallon bucket
To begin, add 4 cups of hot water to a pot.
Grate your soap in the pot. Be careful of your fingers when you get to the end of the bar.
Once grated, stir your pot til the soap flakes are melted.
In a 5 gallon bucket, fill it half way full with hot water.
Add your melted soap.
Add your 1 cup washing soda
1/2 cup borax
Mix well til borax and soda are dissolved.
Stir.
Once dissolved, add more hot water until bucket is almost full and stir again.
**At this point you are free to add some essential oils to your detergent.**
Cover and let it sit overnight.
The next day, you will have a 5 gallon bucket full of beautiful detergent for your laundry.
If you have a top loader, it will take about 1/2 a cup per load.
If you have a front loader, you would use 1/8-1/4 cup of detergent and out of this bucket you get approximately 640 loads of laundry!!!
Insane right?
Fantastic is what it is!!!
WOOT!
I leave the majority of the soap in the bucket and keep some on hand on top of my washer. You could put it in an old laundry detergent bottle, or you can display it proudly as I have this time.
Enjoy your success!
You have just saved your family a great deal of money!
