Homemade Laundry Soap in Review

OK, so last night I decided I was going to make my own homemade laundry soap. After talking to my long last friend Jennifer I decided it was a great economical and "green" decision on our part. Granted, not as green as some ideas, but this is about as close as I'm going to get to a "green" laundry detergent. I am not going to resort to finding a good stream or river with rocks to beat my clothes on so this is it.

I got all of my ingredients together... My 5 gallon bucket and lid, borax, washing powder and soap.

I also got out my cheese grater (not pictured) and grate all of my cheese and put into a pot on the stove. I also had the borax and washing soda in the pot as well. I covered this with water and put it on high and stirred constantly until all of the soap melted.

20 minutes later I'm pretty much panicking because my soap is not melting. I send Jennifer a text and this is how the conversation goes...

ME: "How long does it take the soap to melt?? Its been on there 20 and still not melted"

Jennifer: "Did you grate it? It only took me about five minutes. Add more water."

ME: "Yes I grated it and aI did add more water!!! Aahhh LOL"

Jennifer: "I put mine on high not low... What is yours set at?"

ME: "Med high. Think I resolved it. Took longer because I used a glycerin soap."

Jennifer: "Yep was gonna ask you that. The glycerin cant be used in a HE washer."

ME: "FOUR LETTER WORD FOUR LETTER WORD FOUR LETTER WORD" (literally that is what I texted her!)

Jennifer: "Hmmmmm..... At me?"

ME: "No! At me for not asking first. LOL. Can I use Dove??"

Jennifer: Yes I used white bar dove and I have used jergens and ivory."

ME: "OK. Let me dump this 5 gallon thing down the sink and start over. Thankfully its cheap and I don't feel bad!!"

Here is the picture of the 5 gallon bucket of laundry soap that I labored over and then have to pour down the drain! Sadness did fill me when I did this, but still no guilt. I rinsed it with water, wiped it out, cleaned the cheese grater and pot and spoon and started all over again.

Next, I retrieved some soap from under my sink that was Dove and "normal" soap, not glycerin. However, you will notice it's a bit orange. That's because it is orange. Kind of looks like cheese and I'm pretty sure my kids think I am now cleaning our clothes with some liquid containing their favorite dairy product.










You will notice the white below the cheese like product. This is the borax and washing powder. I filled the pot with water, turned the stove on high and within seven minutes it was all successfully melted and mixed thoroughly! Much better than the thirty minute failure only a few minutes prior to the second success.

I now have a five gallon bucket of laundry soap that will need to be cut with water before I actually use it, so ten gallons worth of laundry soap with minimal effort (but only if you use the right ingredients the first go round). I was very hopefull at this point, VERY HOPEFUL that this laundry soap would work as well as I hoped. Just the cost savings alone had me excited. I put the lid on the bucket and set it aside and think about all the laundry I am going to do the next day.

Fast forward to 5:11 a.m.... Hubs is getting ready for work and for some unknown and horrible reason he is talking to me. Then, I realize he's trying to wake me up. SERIOUSLY? Then I realize that he's trying to tell me he's running late and the baby has had a blow out and would I please take care of her. I get out of bed, no longer grumpy because the circumstances were explained and even in my pre-coffee haze I realized there was some sense to why he woke me up.

I take care of the baby and instead of stripping her bed down right then and throwing the linens in the washer I figured I would let them "marinate" and the stink and stain to set in because I wanted to try the new laundry soap. I leave the baby in her pull up alone and bring her back to me. She's curious watching hubs getting his uniform on as she's normally asleep during this long and arduous process, so she wants to get down and go jabber to him. She's cute, I can't say no. He finally leaves for work and baby gets back in the bed with me and lucky me, she wants to snuggle!!! Yay!! I'm in heaven!

Not even ten seconds after he walks out the door and the room is restored to its wonderful 5:00 a.m. darkness does my little one utter two syllables and I know she's awake for the long haul... "T.B." I scream inside my head and give in and let her watch Mickey Mouse. Yes, I let the "TB" baby sit my baby so I could get a few more minutes or even seconds of sleep that I could get. Thankfully she can't get out of our bed without assistance... it's way too high.

OK... fast forward to 7:00 a.m. I'm finally up and moving... straight down the stairs to fix some coffee. This is normally already made for me, but hubs was running late. That's OK... he's forgiven already. The sweet snuggle time I got this morning was priceless! Anyways... fast forward fifteen minutes to me, coffee in hand adorned in my favorite comfy pants and one of hubs' t-shirts, standing in my baby's bedroom looking at the mess created by her digestion system. Evidently something did NOT agree with her. Looking back now I think it was the ranch dressing she asked for to dip her Chick Fil A nuggets in. That was really the only new thing she'd had.

I strip her bed and put everything in the washer. Then, head back downstairs to get some laundry soap. I find a container in the kitchen and fill it half way with the homemade laundry soap and half water and mix well. I head back up stairs and throw it all in the wash and wait to see the results.

The results... it worked wonderfully! It took all of the poopy stuff out and was clean. Very surprised and happy. I dry everything and there's even less lint in the lint trap in the dryer so it's treating my clothes better than the normal laundry detergent we use that advertises it doesn't wear your clothes out.

Im on load number three and still happy!