I have been making homemade laundry soap for my family for over a year and absolutely love it! It is super easy and made with very little ingredients. Stains come out pretty well, sometimes we have to pre soak a stain before washing. This recipe makes 5 gallons of concentrated soap and amazingly has lasted for a little over 6 months in our house, we still have about 1/4 of the bucket left making the cost at about .01 cents a load!
This soap is great even for sensitive skin and allergies.
Homemade Laundry Soap
Supplies you will need:
5 gallon bucket with a lid
1 bar of soap
(Fels Neptha, or any soap you normally use, we use ivory)
Borax
(can be found in laundry or cleaning isle at the market)
Arm and Hammer Super Washing soda
(found in the laundry isle at your local market)
Step by Step Instructions:
1.Grate the bar of soap. I used a cheese grater and it actually went by pretty fast.
2. Put the grated soap in a pot with 4 cups of hot water. Stir continuously over medium- low heat until all the soap flakes have dissolved. This step usually takes about 10 minutes. It will be slightly foamy with no chunks of soap.
3. Fill a 5 gallon bucket 1/2 full with hot water, then pour in your soap mixture.
4. Add 1 1/2-2 cups of Arm and Hammer Super Washing Soda and 1 cup of Borax. Stir well. I used the end of an old mop for this process, so it would reach all the way to the bottom of the bucket.
5. Fill the remaining of the 5 gallon bucket with water. Stir.
6.Cover the bucket with lid and let it sit over night.
7. The next day, open the lid and stir again. Overnight it should have gelled and thickened.
8. Using a funnel fill a clean rinsed out laundry container (a milk jug would work for this too), with the laundry soap mixture 1/2 way full. Fill the other half with warm water and shake.
My front loader uses about 1/4 cup each load. You would need to use a little more for top loaders. The soap doesn’t have the extra ingredients that other store bought soaps have, so it will not suds as much in the wash. This is normal.
Let me know if you try it and how it works for you!
Thanks to www.icanteachmychild.com for this recipe.
annarjohnson 