Homemade Laundry Soap

A couple weeks ago we made homemade laundry soap at Relief Society.  I'd done this a couple of years ago but had been overwhelmed by the process since we made it outside in huge pots and I couldn't fathom how I could accomplish this task on my own.  This time we made it in a way that was more manageable to me and I'm actually anxious to try it out myself.  Since I've told a few people about it and they wanted me to share the recipe with them I thought the easiest way to do this was to post it on my blog.  I even picked up the ingredients for it the other night since I was able to catch a ride to Wal-Mart.  Even though they shared many recipes with us I'm just going to post one here that is the one we made and seems the easiest.

Homemade Laundry Soap

1/3 bar Fels Naptha Soap

1/2 cup Arm & Hammer Washing Soda 

1/2 cup Borax

Start heating 6 cups of water in a large pan.  Grate the soap and then add it to the water.  Wait till the soap melts and then add the washing soda and the borax.  Stir until everything is dissolved.

Pour 4 cups of hot water into a 2 gallon bucket.  Add your soap mixture and stir.  All 1 gallon plus 6 cups of water and stir.  Let soap sit for about 24 hours and it will gel.  Use 1/2 cup per load.

These were the prices at the Cody WalMart Tues. evening when I purchases my supplies:

fels naptha 97 cents

washing soda 2.77

borax 3.36

Total $7.10

So for the price of less than one container of detergent I was able to buy the ingredients to make many batches of detergent.  According to the calculations that were shared with us the price works out to be about 1 cent a load.  Pretty good!