April 5, 2014

Making Laundry Soap

I have made my own laundry soap for years now! It is so easy and it lasts for about 3 months. The recipe I use makes a 5 gallon bucket. It took me a while to get it just right but this recipe is my favorite.

Here’s the pictures and a walk thru of the process.

These are the things that you need to buy for a 5 gallon bucket of soap. The essential oil is optional.

Pour 1 gallon of cold water over the shavings and stir well, turn on the heat. Heat until all the shaving have melted.

This is 2 cups of borax and 2 cups of washing soda.

When you add the “super concentrate” to the 5 gallon bucket, it’s only about a third of the way full.

This milky white is what color the soap is when it is done.

This is my 5 gallon bucket and the lid that my husband bought for me.

So, one time I made the soap and thought ” I bet oxi clean would really whiten up my laundry”

It foamed over and I mopped laundry soap off the floor for weeks! DONT DO THIS!!

1. Shave 2 bars of fels naptha and mix it well with a gallon of cold water. If you use hot water it will ball up in to a big mess and take a lot longer to melt. Cook the soap and water until you completely melt the soap shavings.

2. Measure out 2 cups of Borax soap and 2 cups of Washing Soda. (This is NOT baking soda!) You fine it in the laundry soap aisle. Cook the mixture a little while longer, it will get thicker like glue.

3. Pour the thick soap mixture into your 5 gallon bucket then add your essential oil, if you don’t want to add the oil just leave it out. The fels naptha smells really nice by it’s self. If I use essential oil then I don’t use softener in my wash. After you put the mix in your bucket, add water up to the rim of the bucket.

4. Let your soap set over night. It will get thick on bottom, and thinner liquid will raise to the top. My mom just adds a scoop of thick soap and a scoop of thin soap to her wash. I prefer to mix it all up with a big whisk (or my sister in law just suggested using the metal paint stirrer on her drill). Then I just have to add one scoop to the wash. I use 1/3 cup per wash, in my high efficiency washer.

NOW FOR THE MATH:

I used to spend $22.00 on Tide every month. It came from Amazon, (I am an Amazon mom, and I LOVE their services). Every month my laundry soap appeared on my door step. $22.00 was the absolute cheapest tide I could buy.

The price breakdown for making your own :

$1.00 per bar of fels naptha (use 2 per batch) = $2.00

$4.66 per box of borax (use a third of a box per batch) = 1.55

$3.29 per box of washing soda ( use about a third of the box per batch = $1.09

I use 2 bars of fels naptha, and 2 cups each of borax and washing soda. I can get almost 3 batches of soap out of each box of washing soda and borax. So approximately $5.00 per 5 gallon bucket of laundry detergent. And a 5 gallon bucket lasts our family of 6 (doing 1 – 2 loads of laundry per day!) about 3 months! That’s a savings of about $60.00 dollars over the course of 3 months. and $240.00 per year. It seems insignificant until you do the math.

I had reservations about making my own soap, and you may too. But I’m here to tell you, once you try it you will never go back. Once again, my mother was right. And I don’t know why that surprises me every time she ends up right. But, making your own soap isn’t an old fashioned out of date thing anymore. It’s just plain common sense.

Please share your recipes! I would love to know how everyone else makes their soap.

Author: Sarah

Filed Under: Antique Recipes