cheap laundry soap recipe

Someday I will remember how to spell separate.

This topic got bumped up (presumably because of spam) and I noticed, that nobody metioned horse chestnut. We have plenty of trees in the neighbourhood and I have used it often, especially with delicate fabrics. Here is a good howto with pictures.

you can try sop berries too just crush them up in water. they are okay when i use them on my skin. (Symphoricarpos albus) they have white berries over winter and grow on roadsides and are sometimes used for hedges. i don´t know how much to use for laundry.

It's great that you make you own soap, I do too and I love it. Lovely Greens by Tanya Anderson has some lovely recipes for lotion and soap if you are interested 😀

Great ideas thanks Nicole!

I would recommend using the white vinegar sparingly. Maybe 1/4 cup? 🤔 I used to use about a half cup with my wash, and it It rusted out my washing machine drum. 😬😳

I also found that when I switched to an organic detergent, like the one you can make yourself (great recipe!), a fabric softener was not needed. My opinion is its the harsh chemicals in the soaps and fabric softeners that cause the hardness. Also, they are very unhealthy. Not only when the clothing is on your skin, and your constantly bresthing them in, the toxins go into your bloodstream when you sweat, and when the dryer heats up it spreads all the chemicals airborne into the environment.

Thanks again for the great article!
Life, Love, and Peace, Michelle 🌻

I would be interested in the "borax is unhealthy to plants" info.

But barring that, I have a very simple recipe that my wife and I have used for coming up on 10 years.

The current iteration does use a microwave, so I plan on experimenting with other means to get similar results, but I don't think it's possible otherwise:

It is made with a ratio of:

1 bar flaked Ivory Soap: 1 cup borax: 1 cup washing soda

The Ivory soap is flaked in a novel way. You put the soap on a microwave-safe plate and set it to 1 min or so. It's a sight to behold. The soap turns into a massive cloud as the vapor in the soap expands blowing up the pockets. Remove the dish from the microwave - be careful- it will be VERY hot.  Pull the fluffy cloud away and take that part and pulverize it in a food processor. There will be a small lump of hot soap left behind and pop that back in the microwave and repeat until the whole thing has been pulverized in this way. Dump the flakes in a canister with the correct ratio of other materials and shake it up.

We usually do 3 bars worth at a time and get enough soap to last about 4 months. I've never done the calculations, but we buy the ingredients in bulk about once a year and it's very reasonable.

I used a Fels Naptha/ Borax/ washing soda recipe for over a year before reading EWG's evaluation of Fels Naptha. It didn't get a very good grade, unfortunately. I'm starting on a homestead on an island where the water table is too high for septic tanks, so all washing will be used for grey water.

I have used soap nuts, and I thought they did a good job. Would love to try horse chestnuts and grow my own soap!

It's great that you make you own soap, I do too and I love it. Lovely Greens by Tanya Anderson has some lovely recipes for lotion and soap if you are interested 😀

wesleyds Smith wrote:I don't know if this is where it belongs but I came across this tip and have been using it for over a year.

grate one bar of fels naptha soap and dissolve it in 4 cups of water on the stovetop. DON'T LET IT BOIL OVER!

in a 5 gallon bucket add one cup of WASHING soda and 1/2 cup of borax with enough warm water to dissolve it.

once everything is dissolved add it together and add cold water to fill the 5 gal bucket.

This will need to be blended (I used an electric drill with a paint stirrer) the next day.  This stuff is a concentrate and should be mixed in a recycled laundry soap bottle 50/50 with water. 

Use it just like any other laundry liquid.  We use it in our front loader machine and it works wonderfully.  The bar of soap could also be Kirks Castille.  I think you could even use homemade lye soap.  There are a couple of options for fabric softener too. 
1. White vinegar.  Use like any other fabric softener liquid.  This is what we use and it works very well.
2. put one bottle of liquid fabric softener into a 5 gal. bucket and top it off with water.  mix it up and throw in a couple of sponges.  Squeeze out a sponge and throw it in like a dryer sheet.

Both of these are great money saving ideas and I hope in this economy it helps just a little.

This is a very good, simple, and effective recipe.  Also, very cheap compared to store bought.  I use the vinegar as a fabric softener as well.  I rub the concentrate into stains before washing with excellent results.  

Fels Naptha has been difficult to get at a price that makes sense.  The Amazon prices are ridiculous.  If you like the Fels Naptha soap, do a little digging online til you find a price that seems logical.  I am in central PA and found it at a store called Rural King which I did not know existed before my search for reasonably priced laundry soap.  

Hi All,

I’m hoping some have already done the research and experimentation on this.

I make soap, and I had a batch that seemed sketchy so I saved it, grated   it, planning eventually to make laundry soap.  I have borax and washing soda.

Does anyone know of a recipe or proportions that I would not have to dissolve in water, and cook?

Or could I do like sun tea, and just dissolve the soap and other ingredients that way?

Or use a stick blender to dissolve the soap and other ingredients?


I guess the question I am really asking is “what happens if I don’t follow the directions?”😊

Thanks

Thekla McDaniels wrote:
I’m hoping some have already done the research and experimentation on this.
I make soap, and I had a batch that seemed sketchy so I saved it, grated   it, planning eventually to make laundry soap.  I have borax and washing soda.
Does anyone know of a recipe or proportions that I would not have to dissolve in water, and cook?
Or could I do like sun tea, and just dissolve the soap and other ingredients that way?
Or use a stick blender to dissolve the soap and other ingredients?

So I've done the sun-tea method to liquefy a batch of sketchy lye soap of mine (glad to hear this happens to other people).
It didn't work very well, but I also probably could have let it sit more (or started with hotter water?). I ultimately ended up cooking it on the stove. Can't speak for the borax and soda, don't have those things where I live.

I make handsoap, but due to some research on how soap works vs detergents (i.e. commercial washingpowder), i don't use it for clothes and such.
Plainly put : soap "sticks" to rough surfaces like cloth just like it does to dirt. Means it wont come out of the clothes easily, hence the hard bashing and scrubbing the old washerwomen did to get clothes clean before washingmachines and detergents.
In  a modern washing machine that doesn't do bashing, since with detergent that is not needed, some of the soap (and dirt) stays in the cloth.
So it may be ok in old fashioned setups with a washboard, but i wouldn't want to. I did wash by hand for a while with detergents (no machine for a bit), but that already is enough work on top of a full workweek to not be attractive.
Better explanation in this link :
http://butterbeliever.com/homemade-laundry-detergent-soap-diy/

Thank you, Tereza.

I was afraid of that, and it does make sense, especially since I don’t wash in hot water.

If I am going to have to cook it, I will wait until the time of year when I am heating my house. I never mind extended cooking times when I am already having to heat the house.

I am just making laundry soap, so I don’t have to throw away this batch of failed soap. Of course, if I like it then I will probably switch over…

I've never horsed around with dissolving the soap in water to make a liquid laundry detergent. I wash in cold and have no issues with my detergent. Quite the opposite, in fact. I've never found anything that works better.

1 box borax
1 box washing soda
1 bar of laundry bar, grated

Mix it together, add two tablespoons to each avg sized load

I sell this at the farmer's market, and people go bonkers for it

Carmen, that is great news.

My soap is formulated for skin, it is superfatted, meaning extra oils.  Also aloe vera and meadowfoam oil to prevent any rancidity, and essential oils (bergamot coriander and grapefruit oil in this batch…. )

Would it be recommended to add more soda?  Or just try it as is before messing with it?

I've never had good luck with the borax/soda/soap mixture. I mostly wash in cold or cool water, and find it just doesn't dissolve, well. It also leaves my clothes dingy, even in hot water. It does, however, work reasonably well as an outdoor soap for cleaning hard surfaces, that can be rinsed. The exception has been when I'm using my own 0% superfat lye soap, which actually does pretty well.

Thekla McDaniels wrote:

Would it be recommended to add more soda?  Or just try it as is before messing with it?

Do it as written and see how it goes. It's very easy to adjust, just by adding more of the other components to even it out. In a pinch, I've even omitted the soap with moderate success. Not as clean, but not stinky either. We cloth diaper the dog (he's 19) so our detergent working is VERY important to us. The no soap formula was not strong enough for cloth diapering, but it was good enough for average adult use clothing.

I imagine the soap you described being nice as a laundry soap and you may really enjoy your result. Report back if you think of it!

Next load I wash!

I am going to try my hand at sheep shearing.  That should give me some fairly fragrant clothes!

Hmmm
Good to know Tamara

I have tried a load with my grated superfatted luxury soap.

Nothing white, because I don’t HAVE anything white🤣.  When I did have white things they didn’t stay white, so why bother?

When I wanted to start my load, I was short on time.  I didn’t look up the recipe, I just thought I remrmbered the ratio was 1:1:1.

I loaded the washing machine started filling with warm water and added 1 tablespoon each grated soap, borax and washing soda.

There were some pieces of soap that didn’t vanish so I let it soak a few minutes, then proceeded in the usual way.

The clothes came out clean and although I couldn’t smell the essential oils, the clean laundry smelled clean.  After hanging on the line everything smelled even better!

I’m calling it a success.  Thanks for the encouragement!