Homemade Laundry Soap

I was not a believer of home made laundry detergent. I'll just put that out there from the beginning. I was attached to my Tide with bleach and Downy fabric softeners. I had heard for quite a few years that there was an alternative to spending $17-20 a month on laundry detergent. I didn't even think about it for years because I was afraid it would not work nearly as well as the name brand or store bought/already made products. This is far, far from the truth! About a month ago, Donovan and I agreed to give the stuff a shot. We are extremely satisfied and LOVE the detergent. I don't know why more people use it! It is very inexpensive for the ingredients, takes about 5 minutes to put together, works and smells fantastic and leaves the clothes incredible clean and soft! There are two different ways to make the detergent, but each is just as great. And it's H/E safe!

We like powder detergent, so we found a recipe to make a powder version. To do this, all you need are 4 ingredients and a couple tools. You will need to buy Borax ($2.50), Super Washing Soda (Arm & Hammer)($2.65), Ivory bar soap($1.18/3 bars) (or another natural soap of your choice) and a bar of Fels Naptha ($.98). The original recipe does not call for the Fels Naptha, but we add it as a stain remover. All these ingredients are found in the laundry isle!


Instructions?-

• Grate the bar of ivory,
  
• grate 1/3 the bar of Fels Naptha
• Add 1 cup Borax and 1 cup Super Washing Soda.
  
• Mix very well. Put in a sealed container.
• Use 1 tablespoon in each load or 2 for super dirty loads.

We still use our Gain fabric softener (because we are smell junkies), so we put a little of that in each load. When buying the ingredients, keep in mind that each box of Borax and Washing Soda make multiple batches of detergent. From three bars of Ivory, one bar of Fels Naptha, one box of Borax and one box of Washing Soda, we were able to make enough for 3 batches and still have over half the box of Borax and Washing Soda. For the mere cost of $7.31 we made enough detergent to last a LONG time :) When you only have to use a tablespoon, the stuff goes a lonnng way!