Tuesday, April 7, 2009

You asked for it....

Several people asked about our exact recipe for the laundry soap we are using after I fessed up to making my own in order to save money.

So, here ya go. This is what I use.

4 cups Borax
4 cups Washing Soda
1 bar Lirio (lavandar scent), grated
1 bar Zote, grated

Process fine - used 2 tablespoons per load

Borax is easy to find just about anywhere - Walmart or your grocery store

Washing Soda is a little harder. Our Walmart carries a big box like this but it is Baking Soda, not Washing soda. And the Baking Soda even says its for laundry - so don't get confused.

My bar soaps I find at Walgreens. They are $1.39 each. This is the smell combination I like. And my mother was just here for a week and I put it through the mom test. Even she liked the smell of the clothes after they were done -- and I used one of DH work undershirts as the tester.
I also buy the oxygen cleaner at the Dollar Tree to use. Some people add this to their recipe - I just use it on certain loads. Check your dollar store instead of paying the oxy-clean price.

I'm not going to do a tutorial as I learned this all from Heather at What What You Have. Follow the link to use her tutorial. Can't see that I need to reinvent the wheel when she did such a good job. Her recipe is a little different.

Also, at Tipnut.com they did an article on 10 homemade laundry soap recipes. They have recipes for liquid as well as powdered. You might want to look at them to get an idea on what products you might like to use or see if you are brave enough to do the liquid. It doesn't look hard, but I'm all about the EASIEST way, so I just do the powder for now.

Good luck to those that want to try it. We all have different scent likes and water issues to deal with, so don't give up right away if you are interested. You might need to try a few different recipes to get it dialed in. And along those lines...you might want to half my recipe the first time in case you don't like it.

4 comments:

  1. Thank you so much! I wasn't one who actually asked you to elaborate on the recipe in a comment, but I was sure hoping you would!

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  2. I did ask and I think I may just have to try this! Thanks.

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  3. Hmmm. I like this recipe better than some others I've seen. I can even use my own handmade lye soap! Now to find some time to try it...

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  4. Amy -

    Which soap of yours would you use? I'm interested in making soap and it would be cool to do my own for this recipe also.

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