Making my 2nd round of Laundry Detergent!

I hit the bottom of my 5 gallon bucket of detergent today.  I think I made it the 1st of June, but it might have been the end of May.  Anyways, as I had stated in my 1st post about making laundry detergent, it cost me about $10 to make. 

To make this round, I only needed to buy the pure soap.  The other bars of Ivory soap mysteriously was used in the past couple of months.  I also decided in this round to find an actual bar of laundry soap, instead of the pure soap.  From my internet searching there are 2 common forms: Fels-Naptha and Zoats.  Today, I found the Fels-Naptha.

When it comes to laundry soap making, Publix has what you need: the washing soda, Borax, and the laundry soap.  If this is your first time making it, I suggest getting the 5 gallon bucket and lid from Home Depot, they are less than $4.

So the original recipe is here:

http://midnightcrafters.blogspot.com/2009/08/laundry-detergent-recipe.html

 

To find the Fels-Naptha at Publix, go to the laundry boasters part of the aisle and look up, it is on the top shelf.  The Washing Soda and the Borax is in that section too.  Now I bought a 2nd Bar of soap to use as a pre-treatment.

I have been reading up on detergent and found out that you can wet the bar and then rub it into the stained area and then throw it into the wash.

Now the part of grating the bar of soap, IS the part that I do not like. I did try a suggestion from another blog to use my blender with a mason jar.

Did not work well.  I think I actually heated up the thing to burn out.  It could be because of 2 reasons,

1 – My blender is old and no longer has the power behind it to get the job done.  My husband did inherit it about 10 years ago from his grandmother.

2 – The soap it somewhat soft and mushy almost like monster cheese instead of a hard parmesan.

I think if I would have had a good food processor the job would have been easier.  So I ended up just cubing it.  I did use a colander to get any bits of dissolved pieces out to reheat them.  Not to worry it is not rocket science, just laundry cooking.

Now another thing about this bar of soap, is that apparently it helps to use it, if you end up in some poison ivy.  Hmm, good to know!

Well, I really wanted to bring this back to you, since it has been a wonder to my budget!  The last batch of laundry detergent hit every aspect of childhood messes and came out clean.  Even doing cloth diapers.

If you do run into lingering smells in your laundry, add borax or even white vinegar.  Please for budget consideration, buy it in the gallon bottle.

I use a front loading HE and some ill effects is that the machine will smell moldy and with a few rounds of pee pee clothes, it has an odor to knock your socks off.  Well adding 1/2 cup of borax to every load will take the smell out, at that point, Just do every other load or as needed.

If you have a top loader, you can make a round of powder detergent instead.  This is not an option for the HE.  You can do a simple web search of laundry recipes and will be blown away by all the information!

Have fun and keep clean!

~trish