Homemade Laundry Soap

I found a recipe for homemade laundry soap on Farmhouse Blessings blog and decided I had to try it and so I did! It is so easy to make and very cheap. All together the ingredients cost me just over 5.00--the price of a bottle of liquid laundry detergent and one batch of the homemade soap will yield just as many loads--BUT it costs so much less, because the ingredients with the exception of the bar of soap will last for many more batches. This soap also cleans great and smells so good.

All you need are these 3 simple ingredients and some water. The bar of soap looks pretty much like cheddar cheese when it's grated up.


Homemade Laundry Soap Recipe

16 cups water
1 bar of soap (your choice but many sources suggest Ivory, Fels-Naptha, Sunlight Bar, Castile or Zote)
1 cup of baking soda or washing soda (I use the washing soda)
1 1/2 cups borax

Before beginning, finely grate your bar of soap.

Boil the 16 cups of water in a large pot. While boiling, add your grated soap and whisk continuously until it completely dissolves. Remove from heat.

Next add borax and baking or washing soda. Whisk it up really well. Continue to whisk throughout the day as it cools. It will begin to gel as it cools, but you don't need to wait to use it.

You may store in old commercial detergent containers or any other covered container as well.

Use ½ cup soap per load.

You can also add 1/4 cup vinegar to the rinse cycle instead of fabric softener..

I found all of the ingredients on the laundry aisle at my local grocery store.

This is what the soap will look like as it cools and when it's finished. It resembles a nice soft hand cream almost. The lemony color is from the soap that I used, so yours may look a bit different depending on what soap you choose to use.

Here it is all ready to use in it's nice glass container. Due to it's consistency it was too much trouble trying to put it into a regualar detergent bottle--even after I cut out the spout thing, so I opted for this glass jar I had picked up a the thrift store a couple of weeks ago for 2.00. Now I'm on the hunt for a pretty little teacup to use as my scoop instead of a plastic measuring cup, which works just great, but not so pretty and we all know if the laundry room is pretty it'll make doing the laundry more enjoyable--well as enjoyable as laundry can be.

I'd also love to hear comments from anyone who tries this, so please feel free to post them here.