DIY Laundry Soap

Happy Thursday! Today begins our 2-part laundry series! This "recipe" was sent to me by my Aunt Linda and she graciously agreed to let me share it with all of you. It costs about $1.66 to make 2 gallons of laundry soap so this is definitely price effective! I also included the cute little printable for your jugs. :)

Ingredients:
1 Bar Fels Naptha Soap
1 cup Borax Powder
1 cup Armor's Washing Soda (Do NOT use Baking soda, its not the same)
1 Gallon Hot water
1 Gallon Cold water
Something to store your laundry soap in. I used 2 Gallon sized jugs, but a bucket or tub would work a lot better!

Tip: At first, I had a hard time finding the first 3 ingredients. Keep searching, they are all right next to each other in the laundry detergent section of Walmart. Here is a picture to make it a little easier:

To make this recipe you need a really big pot! Preferably, use one that holds 2 gallons of liquid. I only had a pot that holds one gallon of liquid, but I made it work!

Finely grate your bar soap. This can be done with a cheese grater or with a food chopper. I started using the grater, but it was taking to long for my liking so I put the bar soap in the food chopper. It worked just as well and was much faster. Also, don't worry about using your kitchen tools for this, since its just soap it washed right off. I had a sink full of hot water while I was working that I just threw the dirty dishes/tools into. By the time I was finished making the soap, all the soap had dissolved off my kitchen tools. Here is what your grated soap will look like:

Place your grated soap into your big pot and add a gallon of hot water. Heat on the stove on medium heat, stirring occasionally, until all your soap flakes have dissolved. Here is what your mixture will look like at this point (you may have a few residual pieces of soap but that's OK):

Add in your Borax powder and washing soda and stir until incorporated. Heat your soap until it starts to boil. If you are using a two gallon pot, you can go ahead and pour your cold water in. If you are like me, you have to be a little more creative. I put half a gallon of water into each of the two containers I was going to use and then divided the soap mixture among them. This worked just as well for me.

Tip: This go around I used two gallon sized jugs, BUT the next time I make this I will use a tub or some type of bucket you can scoop the soap out of. The reason for this is because the soap will coagulate, which makes it a little harder to get it out of the gallon jugs. The jugs are still working, just making things a little harder.

Now you are ready to start washing laundry with your homemade soap! Here is what your final product looks like:

I decided to get a little fancy and add labels to mine. I have included the label as a printable below so you can use it too. :) I attached mine with clear packing tape to protect the paper if the jug got wet (which WILL happen) and it is working well.

 

Use 1/2 cup of detergent per load.

ENJOY!

Tomorrow will be a tutorial for making your own fabric softener so stay tuned!

To use the printable:

1. Right click on picture and select "Copy"
2. In a word document, right click and select "Paste"
3. Size picture to fit your bottle size
4. Print!