Homemade Laundry Soap

This is a different kind of recipe--but so worth your while! We've been very environmentally conscientious LONG before the "green" movement became a fad. I've been buying as much organic food as possible since the late 1990's using canvas bags for almost as long (I always have about 10 in my car, and keep a collapsible one in my purse for when I forget to bring one in for quick purchases). From there I made the switch to organic/ natural personal care products and make up. And the easiest switch of all came around 2001---cleaning supplies! For the most part I clean with vinegar and baking soda, for almost everything. I've been buying earth friendly dish soap for about eight years--I never used the dishwasher (not wanting to waste the water)---but about two years ago, finally gave in as doing the dishes was not only taking up too much counter space, but I found a lot of the day was taken up in keeping up with the dishes that could have been spent with my little girls---the few plastic things we have were handwashed, but I gave up on that too (plastics are not the healthiest choice for food storage, but there isn't a lot of choice with spill proof cups, etc. We did order a couple of "spill proof" cups that are in more of a thermos material for the girls a couple of years ago, but they didn't work too well:). Ok, so anyway, I tried making my own dishwasher soap, but the dishes were left very spotty--as they were with Seventh Generation dishwasher soap--(my dishwasher is old:)--so, I do admit to using Cascade for that.

Now, the real reason for my post (yes I tend to be long-winded at times:), Laundry Detergent--since I started buying earth-friendly laundry detergent back in 2000, we had been spending about $20 a month on it!! Yes, I thing that's steep, but we felt a responsibility to do that. Well about a year and a half ago my mom found a recipe that I've been using since, that is super simple to make, only has to be made once every 1.5 months or so--and costs less than $1.50 to make for about two gallons! I think everything comes out very very clean, and I love this (and it's fun to make:):

• 1/3 bar Fels Naptha soap (I found this at Ace Hardware)
• 1 cup washing soda (NOTE: must be washing soda, not baking soda)
• 1 cup Borax powder

You will also need a small bucket, about a 2 gallon size.

Grate the soap and put it in a sauce pan. Add 6 cups of water and heat until the soap melts. Add the baking soda and the borax and stir until it is dissolved. Remove from heat. Pour 4 cups of hot water into the bucket. Now add your soap mixture and stir. Now add 1 gallon (16 cups) plus 6 cups of water and stir. Let the soap sit for about 24 hours and it will gel. You can use 1/2 cup per load.

A few things to note:

• The finished soap will not be a solid gel. It will be more of a watery gel (looks like egg drop soup).
• The soap is a low sudsing soap. So if you don't see suds, that's ok. Suds don't do the cleaning--it's the ingredients in there that cleans.
• I sometimes will add a few drops of my favorite essential oil to the soap as I'm doing a load of laundry--e.g. lemongrass or orange are nice--if I'm doing sheets and bedding, I use Eucalyptus essential oil (a little goes a long way)--as that kills dust mites.
• If you find the soap has separated, just keep a large spoon in you laundry room and mix it together--it probably means when you prepared the soap, you didn't let the fels naptha melt all the way before adding in the borax and washing soda.
• This does work very well in my relatively new efficient front loader washer

Try it, it's fun, takes very little time to make, it's so much cheaper than ANY commercial soap, earth-friendly or traditional--and you can feel really good about doing something better for your family and our beautiful earth!