Home Made Laundry Soap

So here's the deal.  It's not really a secret.  Are you ready?  

We make a lot of laundry!  

Big surprise, right?  The problem is that it is INSANELY expensive to buy laundry soap in Valdez for a family my size.  Most of the time I remember to grab some at SAM'S, but sometimes I forget or push the limits a little too long and I have to buy local.

I've been looking at all these blogs and people who make their own laundry soap.  It all looks well and good.  Until you get to the grating soap part....Or the boiling soap part....Or the part where my friend who makes her own has dingy looking clothes...Or...And here's the kicker.....THE PART WHERE IT DOESN'T SMELL LIKE LAUNDRY SOAP!  I know, I'm shallow.  But, I LOVE,LOVE,LOVE the smell of clean laundry. 

I finally found a laundry soap recipe that doesn't call for grating  soap or boiling it down so I thought I would try it.  It still wouldn't SMELL like laundry soap but I consoled myself with the knowledge that I would still have my beloved dryer sheets....And then, there it was....right there in the laundry aisle!

 Angels sang from Heaven.  Not even kidding.  Do you mean to tell me that for $6.99 my laundry can smell MORE like laundry?  Whoever made this stuff deserves a Nobel Prize! I thought, "Surely I can add this stuff to a home made laundry soap recipe, right?"  Granted, it makes the financial purpose of making ones own laundry soap a little bit less of a savings but.......Ah, who cares!

So, I gathered my supplies. For Valdez people who are wondering where I got the Washing Soda from...Fred Meyer.  That's also where I got the Downy Unstopables.  They may have washing soda at Eagle, but I doubt it.  I didn't look.  Anyway, supplies.......

 So here's what you do.  You mix 3T washing soda, 3T Borax, 2T dawn dish soap, and 2 Capfulls Unstopables in a gallon sized container.  I'm using a jar because I wanted to be able to see through it for pictures.  I should stop right here and say....People have suggested using different "scents" of Dawn.  In my research, it has been commented several times that the other colors do not work as well as the "Original Blue Dawn" so, take my advice and just stick with the blue stuff.

 Next, you're going to add 4 cups of boiling water and stir it up until everything is all mixed together. I recommend moving your laptop out of the way to keep it safe from dribbles.  *Ahem*

 Here's the part where I started to get a tad worried that my Unstopables idea wouldn't work.  Do you see that it's separating?

 I left it sitting on the counter.  I used a wire wisk to give it a good stir every now and then.  You're supposed to wait until it's completely cool before doing the next step but...well...patience has never been my personal virtue and my mother taught me never to pray for it....So I went ahead and filled the rest of the container with cold water as soon as I was convinced everything was well dissolved.

Don't worry, all those suds disappear after just a bit.  Just go ahead and let them run over the side of the container while you're adding the water.

So, now I'm into my 3rd load of wash using the soap.  I'm using 3/4 a cup in each load.  I have a toploader that uses INSANE amounts of water BUT it gets my cloth diapers cleaner than my front loader ever dreamed of getting them.  In fact, I never cared for my front loader and sold it to go back to the "old fashioned" top loader, but that's a post for another day.  The most expensive part was the Unstopables which is a completely unnecessary ingredient.  I'm finding that it works just as well as my "Name Brand" soap and....Are you ready....IT SMELLS AMAZING! 

 I know someone is going to want to know if this is HE safe and the answer is YES.  The cloth diaper community has been stripping their dipes in HE washers with Dawn dish soap forever with absolutely no problems!