Laundry soap is expensive! Well unless you buy the cheep brands. I tried that when Mat and I got married. Our clothes looked dingy. I loved the homemade laundry soap from Goat Milk Stuff but the shipping made it $$$ so I decided to make my own. It's easy and really does not take much time at all.
I found several recipes on the Internet and read a lot of reviews and this is the one I decided to go with. From what others have said it lasts about 9 months if you do a load of laundry a day! It cost me $16.75 to make!
4 pounds Borax (Found in the laundry isle)
4 pounds Baking Soda (You can find the big boxes in the cleaning isle of Target)
4 pounds Washing Soda (Easy to find in the Midwest in the laundry isle..here in New England had to order it)
3 bars Fels-Naptha Soap (also in the laundry isle)
Some people also add Oxi Clean as well. I did not
If you have a food processor use that to cut the Fels-Napatha soup into little peices. If your like me and you don't own a food processor (I have no idea why I don't have one!) use a cheese grater and grate the soap.
Then just mix it all together in a large bucket or container. You may want to add a little of each at a time to make sure it gets mixed well. I mixed mine in a bucket a got super cheep at The Home depot.
The bucket is great for mixing and holding it(the lid makes it air tight) but it's not pretty so I bought this neat glass container at The Salvation Army store (or Sally as Paula calls it) and I bought a cute wooden scoop from Goat Milk Stuff.
I filled it up and the rest is being stored in my big bucket. All you need is 1 TBSP or 2 TBSP if you have a large load or really dirty clothing! Thats it! I figure I should be able to fill up this 3 quart class jar about 3 or 4 more times before I run out! I put the date on the bucket that I started using the soap so I can see how long it lasts me.
So far I am very happy with this soap. I used it for the first time to wash our couch covers and they look great!
