Thursday, February 5, 2009

Frugal Living and Homemade Laundry Soap


The girls and I had a meeting today about how to do better with saving. I'll try to pass along some ideas as they occur to us.
Here's one that definitely works.
To make homemade laundry soap, round up these hard to find ingredients:
Fels Naptha soap
washing soda
Borax twenty mule team
A bucket for the finished laundry gel, big enough to hold two gallons. I used the empty Sun (cheap detergent from Wal Mart) laundry detergent bucket.
The recipe says:
1/3 bar Fels Naptha, grated into a saucepan with 6 cups water. Heat and stir till all melted.
1/2 cup each washing soda and Borax. Add to pot and stir well.
Pour 4 cups hot water into bucket, add your soap mixture and stir. Now add a gallon plus 6 cups of water and stir.
When it cools, it will gel and turn really interesting!
Use 1/2 cup per load.

One of my favorite things about this recipe is that when you're melting your grated soap, your house smells really clean.
This soap is working fantastic for me.
At least give it one try to see if you're impressed enough to go through the trouble of mixing a few ingredients to save tons of money- and the environment.
You can find people showing you how to make this on Youtube as well. Some of them make a powder, but since you only use some crazy amount like and eighth of a teaspoon per load, I do better with the gel- makes me feel like I'm adding lots of soap!

2 comments:

  1. This is so awesome, Mrs. G. Where do you get your ingredients? I know you are an intrepid traveler, but please, tell me that they are available locally.

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  2. Is this compatible with high-efficiency washers? If not, any ideas on how to convert the recipe for HE use?

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