DIY STUFFS: Laundry Soap

Laundry... besides dishes, it is the one thing in our house that is NEVER ENDING!  Along with never ending laundry comes never ending laundry soap and the crazy expense.  My preferred is Tide, but I can no longer allow myself to spend the crazy $$$ on it.  I've gone generic for the last 2 purchased bottles.  And now... I've gone home-made!   $7 and about 15 minutes later, I have enough laundry soap for 1200 loads!

I found all of the ingredients at my local Walmart in the laundry section.  1 box Super Washing Soda, 1 box 20 Mule Team Borax and 1bar Fels-Naptha laundry soap bar.

Step 1:
Grate the bar of Fels- Naptha into a food processor or blender. 

*note:  it may be a great idea to keep the grater as "laundry soap only" since it may be hard to get it completely clean for use with food.  I got this one at the Dollar Store

Step 2:  Process the grated soap down to granules.  Since I don't have a food processor I used my blender.  I would run it for 30 seconds and then stir it around with a spoon.  All total, it took about 3 minutes to get the results I was looking for.

 

Step 3:  Still in blender/food processor- Mix granulated soap, 1/2 cup Borax, 1/2 cup Washing Soda.  Blend long enough for ingredients to be mixed together.

 

Finished Product:

Use 1-2 tablespoons for normal large loads.  Yes, you read correctly TABLESPOONS!  This is probably the hardest part to get used to!  It does get your clothes clean and fresh smelling though!

There are tons of variations of this recipe on the web.  I have also seen mixing the entire box of Borax, entire box of Washing Soda, 3 bars of Fels- Naptha and 1 container of Oxy Clean to make 1 year supply of soap.