Homemade Laundry Soap, Version 2 . 0

Powdered homemade laundry soap - I can't believe I didn't try this before!  I think the main thing holding me back was that the recipes I had come across for the powdered version required the use of a food processor (which I don't have and don't have any plans to purchase).  Then I came upon this recipe at DIY Natural.  It seemed too easy to not try, so why not?

I used the same basic ingredients as for my liquid version, minus the water:

1 bar Sunlight soap

1 cup Arm & Hammer washing soda

1 cup 20 Mule Team Borax

I grated the bar of Sunlight soap in a large bowl using a cheese grater.  Then I added the washing soda and the borax.

Then I stirred and stirred and stirred some more...

...until I ended up with a powder.  It took about 10 minutes of vigorous mixing to end up with a fine powder.  You use 1 or 2 tablespoons per load.  This made enough to last me about two weeks.

I was skeptical about how well this would work and if it would leave a powdery residue on the laundry.  So far, after nearly 3 weeks of use, I haven't had any problems at all.  If a load is quite dirty (play clothes, etc.) I have been adding a scoop of Oxi-Clean to the water first.

Thanks for visiting today!

Homemade Laundry Soap

A friend recently asked me for my recipe for homemade laundry detergent, so I thought I would share it with you.  It's fairly easy but a little time consuming.  It's very frugal - each batch costs only around $2 to make (works out to about 6 or 7 cents per load).  Let's get started!

You will need:
a large container of some sort (I use a 3 gallon/11 litre bucket)
1 bar Sunlight soap*
1 cup Arm & Hammer washing soda*
1 cup 20 Mule Team Borax*
28 cups hot water
*these are all in the laundry aisle at my local grocery store

 Grate (as finely as possible) your soap into a medium saucepan.









Add 6 cups hot water and heat on stove until the soap is dissolved.  Remove the pan from heat and add 1 cup washing soda and 1 cup borax.  Stir until everything is mixed together well.  Pour the soap mixture in your container and add 22 cups of hot water.  Stir well and let sit for up to 24 hours.

 This makes about 7 litres. After it has set, it will be a sort of gel.  Stir it up and then you can transfer it to storage containers if you want.  I usually dilute it more at this point so it's a little more pourable.

 When you're using this for laundry, you'll probably use about a cup per large load.  You need to let it mix with the water before you add whatever you're washing or you might get streaks of residue on your stuff.  I usually wash in cold water but I don't think it would be as tricky to use in hot water (because it would dissolve  more quickly in hot water).

And that's all there is to it!  It doesn't have much scent so it's good for people who are sensitive to perfumes or have breathing problems.  It just has a kind of clean smell.

Thanks for visiting today!  I'm linking this post to the Hip Homeschool Hop.

I got the original idea for this recipe from a newspaper article, but I have tweaked and changed it..

Frugal Hand Soap

I wanted to share a frugal success story with you!  I've had some "frugal dismal failures", so every success is very encouraging.  I don't like using a lot of harsh chemicals in my house, so I've been making my own household cleaners or buying "greener" cleaners (when the price is right!).  Over the last three years or so, I have successfully made my own laundry soap, glass cleaner, all purpose cleaner and scrubbing powder (like Comet).  Today, I decided to tackle liquid hand soap!

I had previously looked for ideas online.  There were recipes for making your own soap right from scratch, which didn't really appeal to me and would require some special equipment/ingredients.  Then I found recipes that simply used bar soap as the base.  That's what I decided to go with.

Any bar soap can be used (I think), as long as you like the smell of it.  A lot of the recipes I found called for Ivory soap.  I decided to use a glycerin soap for my first attempt.  What I had on hand was a strawberry scented glycerin soap from The Body Shop (mine was in a heart shape).  I forgot to take a photo before I started.  By the way, I can't remember the last time I bought something at The Body Shop for myself.  This soap was a gift! :)

The first step is to grate up your bar of soap.  I used my cheese grater to do this.

 Once the soap is all grated, measure is to find out how much you've got.  I had about 2 cups of soap shavings.  Next, I dumped the soap shavings into a pot and added 4 cups of hot water.  Stir it a little and put it on to heat on the stove (using medium heat).  Do not let it boil!  Stir occasionally to make sure the shavings are melting.

  When everything is melted, remove from heat and stir.  Let the soap sit in the pot to cool a bit.  After it has cooled down somewhat, you can transfer it to a bowl or container, but I just left it in the pot.

  As it sits, it will get thicker.  You can stir it every now and then while it's sitting to make sure it doesn't get lumpy.  When it has cooled, it will form kind of a gel.

Stir it a bit and then pour some into your soap dispenser.  I would recommend you only fill your dispenser half full, so if it is a little too thick, you can dilute it some more with water.

Here is the finished product:

This recipe made enough liquid soap to half fill my dispenser and fill a 907 g (2 lb) margarine container.  So, I figure I can probably half fill my dispenser 10 times.  That's quite a lot from one small bar of soap!

I know you could just as easily put your bar of soap in a soap dish and use it like that, but I kind of prefer liquid hand soap for communal use :)  Also, my kids tend to make a mess with the bars of soap (leaving it floating in water, squeezing it when it's wet, etc).  Next time I make this, I'd like to try Ivory soap to see if it gives the same results.

I hope you've enjoyed my post today.  Thanks for visiting!