Home Made Laundry Soap

A friend let me try the home made laundry soap she made and I really liked it. I followed her advice and looked up the "recipe" on The Duggar Family. Here it is:

4 Cups - hot tap water
1 Fels-Naptha soap bar
1 Cup - Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda*
½ Cup Borax

- Grate bar of soap and add to saucepan with water. Stir continually over medium-low heat until soap dissolves and is melted.

-Fill a 5 gallon bucket half full of hot tap water. Add melted soap, washing soda and Borax. Stir well until all powder is dissolved. Fill bucket to top with more hot water. Stir, cover and let sit overnight to thicken.

-Stir and fill a used, clean, laundry soap dispenser half full with soap and then fill rest of way with water. Shake before each use. (will gel)

-Optional: You can add 10-15 drops of essential oil per 2 gallons. Add once soap has cooled. Ideas: lavender, rosemary, tea tree oil.

-Yield: Liquid soap recipe makes 10 gallons.

-Top Load Machine- 5/8 Cup per load (Approx. 180 loads)

-Front Load Machines- ¼ Cup per load (Approx. 640 loads)

*Arm & Hammer "Super Washing Soda" - Regular Baking Soda will not work, nor will Arm & Hammer Detergent - It must be sodium carbonate!!

I found the ingredients I needed in the Laundry isle at Walmart -

I also bought a hand held cheese grater for the bar of soap. It wasn't too hard even though I nicked myself on my thumb lol...and it cleans easy. To melt the soap in the water on the stove, I used an old pot that I was going to toss. This will now be my soap pot =) To put the final laundry soap in I bought a 5 gallon paint bucket with lid at Walmart too. To stir it all together, I used the end of my broom.

I bought 3 bars of the soap and a box each of the Arm & Hammer and Borax... with the cheese grater and paint bucket I think I spent about $15.00 total. I can tell this bucket will last A LONG TIME and I still have 2 more bars of soap left and tons of the Arm & Hammer and Borax too... this is definitely a lot cheaper than buying laundry soap in the store. Only buying fabric softner is going to be great...

Here is the laundry soap after I mixed it all, but before I let it sit for the night. The next morning when I stirred it, it was like gel.

Tell me your home made cleaning products!! Share your tips and "recipes" =)