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Monday, March 3, 2014

Laundry Soap Recipe

A few months ago we started making our own laundry soap.  This was not only because we've become crazy natural hippies (a little) but also because it is much cheaper than buying laundry detergent at the store.  As you can imagine with two kids and multiple trips to the gym every week we tend to do one (sometimes two) loads of laundry a day to keep up. I did some research and found multiple recipes online to make laundry detergent so I combined them and created my own.  I thought I'd share for anyone who might be interested. 

Laundry Soap Recipe:

1-2 bars of soap 
1 cup borax
1 cup washing soda
3.5 gallons water

Grate up the bars of soap using a cheese grater.  I use two because in my experience it makes the detergent a little thicker.  I don't think this impacts the effectiveness of the soap, it's just my preference. 


Yesterday we used Fels-naptha and Irish Spring since that's what we had. We've used other bars as well.  


Bring 4-8 cups of water to a boil in a medium saucepan and add the grated soap. 


Boil until it melts and basically becomes soapy water.


While that is boiling fill a five gallon bucket with the remaining water and the borax and washing soda. 


Once the soap is ready, add to the bucket and stir well. 


Cover the mixture and let it set for 24 hours.  Then you can stir it up.  It will be a little lumpy.  I use a half a cup per load.  If you prefer it to be scented you can add essential oils.  I've not tried this yet so I don't have any recommendations on how much. 

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