I’ve probably written a post about homemade laundry soap three times already.  Since I sorta started with a clean slate on this blog again, I figured I’d rewrite another, but this time with pictures.

Laundry soap is expensive.  I mean, seriously.  Have you looked at the prices lately?  Even the cheap stuff (which doesn’t work worth a flip) is expensive.  And the stuff has so much gunk in it, it is no wonder it makes you itch so much.  Plus, when you make your own, you know it’s not harmful to the environment, and it is so hypoallergenic you can use it on most anything, even baby clothes.  This is a giant plus to me, because my oldest has pretty bad eczema and keeping the clothes itch-free is a very high priority for me.

So if you follow these directions which I’ve tweaked over the last two years, you will end up with a laundry detergent that outperforms the best commercial product you can buy, plus it will only cost you pennies per load to use.  An unbelievable savings.  For those of you with massive amounts of laundry to do, you will notice the savings very quickly.

This article will be pretty long, because I’m assuming you’ve never tried this before.  If you have used this method before and are just looking for a reader’s digest version, here you go.

WARNING:  USE THIS RECIPE AND METHODS DESCRIBED HEREIN AT YOUR OWN RISK.
It’s not my fault you thought this was a cookie recipe and tried to bake it and feed it to your kids.
USE COMMON SENSE!  This is for laundry and some of the materials used in concentrated form can irritate you .  Read all labels and use personal safety equipment where recommended by manufacturer.

Hardware you need:

• 5 gallon bucket with sealing lid (Walmart has them for cheap, or find a used one and clean it out well)
• Sturdy stirring spoon
• Large Crock pot
• 2-3 quart metal mixing bowl (optional)
• Empty plastic coffee can with lid (optional)
• Measuring cup(s)
• Gallon-sized container

Ingredients you need:

• 20 Mule Team Borax natural laundry booster
• Arm and Hammer Super Washing Soda (this is NOT baking soda you put into cookies!)
• Fels Naphta laundry soap bar
• water
• bits and pieces of leftover bar hand soap (optional)

The Reasor’s at 15th and Lewis in Tulsa has all three ingredients you need for cheap.  I’ve found the Borax at Walmart for cheaper, but they don’t carry the Super Washing soda or the Fels Naphta bar soap.

Ok, you ready?  To save yourself some sanity, make this a three day process.

Day 1

Do day 1 in the evening.  Prep time is about, oh…  5 minutes.  Try to time it just before you go to bed.

A lot of recipes similar to this one tell you to grate the fels naphta bar, as if it is a chunk of cheese.  This is so cumbersome and annoying, not to mention that my fingers are shredded by the time I actually get it done.  The soap bar is very thick, clogs up your cheese grater, and took me an hour once just to get a bar done.  The following method is so much easier and saves a lot of pain.

Put one and one half quarts of hot tap water in large crock pot.  Lately, I’ve been using a metal mixing bowl I found at goodwill.  I put the hot tap water in this and place the metal bowl in the crock pot.  Do it however is comfortable for you.  I find it saves me a lot of clean up time.

Simply place the Fels Naphta bar into the crock pot.  If you’re really anal about not wasting stuff, this is also where you can put in those random bits and pieces of hand soap that get left over from hand washing at the sink.  I only use Ivory bar soap for this, so only Ivory soap ends up in my laundry soap.  Ivory doesn’t have any dyes or fragrances, so I’m safe there.  I wouldn’t recommend bits of soap that are full of dyes, fragrances, or harsh abrasives.  This step is optional, but I figured I’d throw it in for you hard-core folks.

Turn your crock pot on the lowest setting.  If your crock pot has a “keep warm” setting, this is the best setting to use.  Do not use the high setting, ever. This is VERY important!  DO NOT ALLOW THIS MIXTURE TO BOIL! It makes a god-awful mess.  It won’t hurt anything, but you’ll be cleaning up for awhile.  (can you say yellow bubbles everywhere!)

Stir the water and soap around a little, cover, and go to sleep.  You’re done for the night.  (Note:  your house might start to smell like a meth lab after a few hours, so if you don’t want this to happen, set your crock in the garage or outside on a covered porch during good weather.)

This is what my crock looks like just before I go to bed (without the crock cover on, of course):

You can’t see the yellow fels naphta bar.  Thing is so thick, it sinks to the bottom.

Nite, nite, sleep tight!  Don’t forget to check your crock pot first thing in the morning.  If you let it sit there forever, all the water will evaporate and you’ll end up with fried soap and a nasty smell that stays with you for a LONG time.

Day 2

In the morning, when you wake up, go to your meth lab crock pot and carefully stir until the mixture is a nice yellow color.  (At first it might look white if you used white soap pieces.  Ivory is lighter than fels naphta and so floats to the top)  The fels naphta bar should be completely melted.  It should look something like this:

If a lot of water has evaporated overnight (shouldn’t if you have the lid on), add a little water.  Turn crock on high and heat it up, but don’t let it boil.

Pour the mixture into your five gallon bucket.

If you’ve prepared, you will already have 2 cups of borax and 2 cups of Super Washing soda ready to go: (I use a four-cup measuring cup so I can dump it all in at once)

Dump the Borax/Super Washing Soda into your five gallon bucket.

(It’s like making cookies, isn’t it?)  After you’ve added the mixtures together, stir, stir, stir, stir, stir.  It might clump a little, but keep stirring until you have all the Borax and Washing soda dissolved.  For good measure, I usually stir for five minutes:

Now add two gallons of hot water to the mix.  I use a 1 gallon drink dispenser to pour in two loads of hot water totaling two gallons:  (did I mention the water should be hot?)

After pouring in two gallons of hot water, guess what you do?  Stir, stir, stir, stir, stir….  until your hands fall off.  After a lot of stirring the mixture will be an off-white color.

It is NORMAL to have a 1-2 inch layer of thick bubbles at the top of the mixture.  Don’t worry about it.
This first image is hard to see, but here’s what my mixture looks like.  I followed it up with a modified image to show the texture:

The modified image to see the texture:

As described in many places on the internet with recipes like this, the texture is like “soupy mashed potatoes”.

The next part is easy.  Put the lid on the bucket and let it sit throughout the day and overnight until completely cooled.

Day 3

Still with me?  Time to go check out your creation.

Take off the lid and look at your new laundry detergent.  Don’t panic.  It’s supposed to gel up like that.  In fact, you may have 2 to 3 inches of a coarser gel-like mixture on top and underneath it will probably be a smoother gel-like mixture.  If it’s not exactly like this, don’t worry, your soap will still work:

Note how the yellow spoon sticks straight up with no support.

Guess what?  Do some more stirring.  Stir, stir, stir.  It might be hard at first.  This is why you need a really sturdy spoon.  My yellow spoon up there is my dedicated “laundry detergent” spoon.  It might take you several minutes to get everything stirred up really well.  Keep at it.  Once your soap reaches that lumpy, soupy mashed potato look, you’re good to go.  Simply seal until ready to use.

Final product:  good to go for another four months:

Note, I stopped using the metal coffee can and reverted to a plastic one, because the metal started corroding badly causing the soap to discolor. 

How to use:

Stir soap well before each use.

For regular loads without a lot of dirt involved, I use 1/4 cup of this stuff.  Yes, you heard me.  One quarter of a cup!  That’s it!  Beginning to see the economy of this yet?

For loads that are very dirty, I use 1/2 a cup.

For best results, fill your washer up a bit with warm water and toss in your soap.  Stir it up a little until it’s dispersed well.  Add clothes and wash as usual.

For really fresh clothes, add 1/4 cup baking soda (yes, the actual baking stuff this time) to the wash water.

Tips

If the 5 gallon bucket is too much for you to handle all the time, do what I do.  Stir the mixture VERY WELL.  Now transfer some of the soap into a washed-out, plastic coffee can with lid.   Use the coffee can now, instead of the bucket.

Need an alternative fabric softener?  Add 1/4 cup distilled, white vinegar to the rinse cycle.  Does the same exact thing for much cheaper.
OR
Soak a wash rag in a bowl of vinegar, wring out and toss in with the dryer.  Doesn’t work as well, but still gets good results.

Need hand dish detergent in a pinch?  Use 1 tablespoon of your laundry detergent and 1/4 cup white distilled vinegar in the sink.  It won’t bubble up like regular dish detergent, but it cleans like h311!  Might use rubber washing gloves, though.  The borax and super washing soda is pretty rough on hands.  Be careful if you have a shiny aluminum sink though.  The washing soda could slightly discolor it.  (I know…  I speak from experience!)

Want to make your fels naphta bar melting process quicker?  Try this method.

If you’ve used this recipe or have another or want to share your experiences about it, please let me know in the comments section.