Laundry Detergent

 In my continuing effort to be frugal and stuff, I have made my first attempt at laundry detergent.  And I must say, I am very pleased with how it turned out.  I've seen several recipes, but I used one from my friend Amber. And it's super easy. The full recipe is at the bottom.

The three ingredients you will need (plus water):

You can get all of this on the laundry aisle of WalMart.

 So take the bar soap and dissolve it in 4-6 Cups of boiling water.  Once again, I was lazy. And I think I have carpal tunnel. Anyway, it would dissolve a lot faster the smaller you can get the pieces.  Mine took about 15 minutes.

Shredding the FelsNaptha soap.

When it's dissolved, add it to a five-gallon bucket, with your borax and washing soda, fill the bucket with water, and stir.  You can also add some essential oil to the mix for fragrance.  I looked at some and for the price, I decided not to, simply to keep the price down. And honestly, I don't mind the smell. It smells clean. 

The recipe said to stir it the next morning, but I forgot. So a few days later when I remembered to do it, I had to break up some serious gelatinous blobs. So now it's a little chunky. 

When I first filled up my bucket, it was just to the top of my spoon.  I've been using it for about a month.  With an average of four loads of laundry a week, that's around 16 loads, an inch of detergent used. The recipe said to use about a half cup per load.  I've been using the cup from the last bottle of detergent I bought. I think it's pretty close to a half cup.  I haven't actually measured it. I estimate I will get about 250 loads out of my five gallon bucket.

 Here's the price breakdown on Amazon: 

• 76 oz Borax- $7.98
• FelsNaptha Laundry Bar Soap- $3.91
• 55 oz Washing Soda-$5.99

• Total-  $17.98

 Okay, I bought all of my stuff at Walmart but couldn't remember exactly how much they were, but I know do know all of it was cheaper than Amazon. This is just a rough estimate. 

Compare that to this detergent at WalMart, very similar to what we might buy. 150oz for $18 and 90 loads.  This might sound pretty close to cost, but I still have nearly full boxes of Borax and Soda to use. So my initial batch was a little more, but the next 10 buckets that I make will only cost $2 for the bar of soap.  $2 for 200+ loads of laundry, I think YES!

So here's what I like  this soap.  It seriously gets our laundry cleaner. We only have so many bath towels, and after a while they start to get a funky smell.  Before this, I was adding vinegar to our towels every load and it was helping. But really I don't want to do that because I detest vinegar.  After the first time washing them with the detergent, I noticed they smelled so good, and felt cleaner.  

It gets our workout clothes cleaner.  Did I just hear a collective gasp at the word workout come out of my mouth? It's true. Stay tuned.  Anyway, they stink.  Even after washing them with an extra amount of regular detergent on hot, they were still a little fresh. As in they still stunk. Not exaggerating, after one wash, I was seriously happy.  It got that workout buildup out. Ya know the stuff that builds up in the pits? Maybe we're the only ones,  because we're such sweaters.  Haha, not that kind of sweater. 

Some of our older clothes have deodorant build up on them.  I've already noticed that it's started coming out of some of those shirts that've been washed.  I feel like it's extended the life of our clothes. 

Now that I'm looking back and thinking about it, I can't believe how bad we needed this. You should totally try it!  Here's the recipe from Amber:

Laundry Soap Recipe
1 bar Felsnaptha soap
1 cup borax
1 cup of Arm & hammer Washing Soda

Grate the Felsnaptha bar of soap and melt it on the stove with 4 cups of water.
Fill a 5 gallon bucket with water 1/2 full - mix in the borax and the arm & hammer baking soda and then mix well. Add the melted soap.Stir and then fill the rest of the bucket full of water, stir and let it sit over night. Mix again in the morning.

There is not much of a smell to it so if you have a essential oil that you like alot add 36 drops. i don't mind the smell of the soap but I do use dryer sheets that adds what I like.

Add 1/4-1/2 cup if you have a top loading washer or Add 1/8-1/4 cup if you have a front loading washer.