Green Cleaning - Laundry Soap

Laundry Day!

Dread it or love it this day has to happen to keep us in clean clothes! Now, although I am not as GREEN as I could be during the whole washing, drying, folding, putting away process as I could be, I am one step closer!

Ideally I would be using a high efficiency washer and dryer along with hanging my clothes on a line in the breeze, but I don’t! Not yet anyway. For now my green laundry day starts and ends with making my own laundry soap.

This low cost and highly effective concoction has been a staple in my house for the past year… and I have only had to ‘cook’ it once! I tweaked my original recipe to where it works well for me. Oh and bonus, when I get that high efficiency washer and dryer it is safe to work in that too!

So now let’s get down to the nitty griddy and make us some laundry soap!

There are three ingredients that you need to pick up. First being Fels Naptha soap, Second Washing soda, Third Borax. All three of these items can be found in the laundry section of most any store that has laundry soap!

Once you have those three items you can make your soap with just a few more items most people have on hand.

Supplies list

Two quart saucepan
one cup measuring cup
cheese grater
Whisk
One gallon pitcher with pourable lid
5five, one quart jars with lids
water

 

Getting Started

First… Grate the Fells Naptha Soap into the two quart sauce pan. Add six cups of water and turn on medium heat. Melt the soap, but do NOT let it boil! Remove from heat.

 

Second… Measure one cup washing soda and one cup Borax. Add both to the melted soap. Whisk until fully dissolved. Pour equal parts …about one and a half cups… into each of the six containers… quart jars and pitcher… add water to the jars so they are full with four cups of liquid. To the pitcher add enough water to bring the liquid half way to the top. Gently shake your jars and store. Whisk your pitcher and let sit overnight.

 

 

Third… After letting your pitcher sit overnight gently whisk to break up your soap then fill the pitcher with cool water. Make sure you mix well.

Fourth… Add one half cup to your washer. I suggest adding it before putting any laundry in. To make sure you rinse away all the soap I suggest putting one half cup vinegar in a fabric softener ball for the rinse cycle. The vinegar is optional, I just like to know everything is super clean!

So, for just pennies per load you can have nice Eco friendly laundry soap! Just a warning to you if you are used to a store bought super fragrant laundry soap then be prepared to be disappointed! Turns out the smell of clean does not actually have a smell! But if you must you can add about twenty drops of either Sweet orange or lavender essential oil to each of your six containers. Although there still won’t be an overabundance of aroma you will be able to smell a little something!

 

I also grate a couple extra bars of soap and measure out my Borax and Washing Soda. I put the ingredients into separate bags than into a large bag. This way when I need to make another batch of soap I just have to melt it all together! I usually don't have to make soap but every six months or so!

 

My challenge to you is to try this. If you do, let me know how your attempts go. Also if you like it or hate it. If you already make your own soap let me know how your recipe differs from mine. Can’t wait to hear from everyone!