How to make homemade laundry soap

Today was the day that we finally did it!  We made our own homemade laundry soap!  There are a ton of variations out there and for our first run we decided to try the dry version. 

Here’s what you need:

• 3 bars of Fels Naptha laundry soap (5.5 oz.) $1.69 each
• 2 cups baking soda (I already had this box on hand)
• 1 box washing soda (55 oz.) $4.29
• 1 container Oxy-clean (5 lbs.)  $14.99
• 1 container Epsom salt (3.5 lb. container) $9.96
• 1 box Borax (76 oz.)  $5.79

Total spent – rounded up to $44 for everything.

As I said before, there are soooo many versions out there and probably as many different reasons for the versions.  Some add this ingredient for this result and some add that ingredient for a different result.  I just found one I liked, that looked easy and bought the ingredients. 

When I initially went to the store I couldn’t find the washing soda and the Fels Naptha.  Turns out they have ALL that at our local hardware store! 

Our first step was to grate all the Fels Naptha.

Then we combined all the remaining ingredients in two garbage sacks.  We then swished everything around to mix it up.  Because of all the ingredients, it is pretty heavy. 

Next we had to figure out how to get it in the containers.  I had two one gallon containers, they used to hold tea, and was going to try and fill them up.  We thought about cutting off part of the corner and pouring it that way but ended up using a funnel.  It worked pretty well but took a while to do it.

The laundry soap totally filled two one-gallon containers and also filled up my ceramic container.  My ceramic container used to be part of a set that I used to hold flour etc. so it has a handy tablespoon on the side for measuring the soap. 

And that was it!!  Overall, besides grating the soap, it was pretty easy peasy. 

The question many folks ask is…how much is it saving me?  We spent $44 on our homemade laundry soap ingredients but that made enough for approximately 300-600 loads using 1-2T at a time for each load.  Recently in the paper we saw Tide advertised for $10.99 and the box did 53 loads.  If you multiply $11 (we rounded up on the price of the Tide) times 4 to equal what we spent on our homemade laundry soap, the total is $44 for 212 loads.  Our math could be off, math was never my strong suit and I’m sure there are more intricate ways to figure out cost per load etc., but whatever way you look at it, we will be saving a lot of money. 

Here is my container filled with laundry soap!  As you can see I’m in the process of making two more wool dryer balls.  They have about 3 more washings/dryings to go and they’ll be ready!  We tried the soap tonight and it worked great!!  I will keep you updated on how it goes.

What new things have you tried recently? 

(((hugs))) ~lisa