DIY: Laundry Soap

So, thanks to Pinterest I have found so many new things to do and projects to try around the house!  It’s pretty exciting.  One of the more random things I came across was making your own laundry soap.  It’s so simple I had to try it.  According to everything I’ve read online and the calculations I’ve done, it costs about $0.02 per load using the homemade soap versus $0.25 per load with a store bought detergent….I’ll let that sink in…. OK, now that it’s understood that laundry soap is EXPENSIVE I’ll tell you how easy it is to make your own at home! 
I chose to make the powder version, however there are recipes out there for the liquid version.  I chose to make the powder because I’m lazy and it’s WAAAAYYYY easier than boiling and stirring and whatnot.  Maybe next time. 
I really would recommend going ahead and making two batches at a time, since the batches aren’t that big and detergent goes pretty quickly(especially in my house!). 
So the materials you will need are as follows:
-Washing Soda: this is a product made by Arm and Hammer that you’ve probably never even noticed before in the laundry aisle.  I found mine snuggled up next to the next ingredient…
-Borax: I used 20 Mule Team brand, but any kind will do.
-Bar Soap: the recipe i followed called for Fels Naptha, but I’ve read that any kind will do.  I’ve seen some recipes that call for Ivory or Zote, but I went with the F.N. since it was so conveniently located next to my other 2 ingredients.
Speaking of my ingredients, here they are now in a cute little group shot..

The first thing I did was grate my bar soap using a cheese grater, but a food processor would also work.  I’m warning you, if you decide to grate the whole bar by hand you may regret it.  I did…5 seconds in, but there was no turning back.  It’s best to grate it pretty fine, since you want everything to be powdery and fluffy(IT'S SO FLUFFFFFYYYYYY!!!!) in the end.  I ended up crumbling the soap a little more with my fingers, since I wanted it to be very fine. 
After you grate the whole bar of soap, add 1 cup of borax..


Then, add one cup of washing soda.

After everything is in your bowl or container, mix it all together.  Then mix it some more, and then mix it some more so it’s niiiiiice and powdery.

After I had everything combined very well, I found a container to store it in and a cute spoon to measure it out with.  I wanted my container to be somewhat airtight, because if any moisture got in it could cause clumping.  The hubs and I have become avid coffee drinkers, and have recently polished off a giant thing of Folgers which comes in those “airtight” plastic containers these days.  To get rid of the coffee smell I filled my container with warm water, some dish liquid and a generous splash of white vinegar and let it marinate like that for about an hour.  Can I just say that white vinegar is one of my favorite household cleaning products? I love that stuff!  It gets rid of all sorts of smells and stains, there are so many uses! 
So anyway, I really am not a fan of red and unfortunately that is the color of Folgers.  So I dressed up my little coffee container with some scrap book paper and super glue and wrote on it what it was and how much to use, just in case the hubs gets a wild hair and does some laundry!  (love ya, boo!) 
 
*Side note: I intend to find a very cute jar or container at the vintage store by my house but as of now I haven’t been able to find anything.
So far it cleans well and makes everything smell fresh.  To me, there’s no difference between this and store-bought laundry soap, aside from the price!  So, if you’re feeling frugal and sick of paying our the wazoo for laundry soap go ahead and make ya a batch or two and then let me know how it goes!
Thanks for stoppin’ by!

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