Recipe : Laundry Soap

I used to be a Tide girl.  I was devoted to Tide and no other brand of laundry soap was good enough for me.  I paid my $28 or whatever to Costco for the giant sized box of powder for years. 

Then, this summer my friend told me about how she had started making her own laundry soap and how much she loved it.  She shared her recipe with me and I was quickly converted.  No more Costco runs for laundry soap.  Now, when I’m running low I hit the kitchen and whip out another batch of detergent.  I don’t think I’ll ever go back to store bought detergent.  I’m quite convinced that this recipe cleans clothes better, leaves them fresher and costs a lot less.

Here’s what you need:

Fels-Naptha Soap (2 cups, finely grated; about 1 bar), Washing Soda (1 cup) and Borax (1 cup).

You can get the Borax anywhere (Wal-Mart, Albertsons, etc) but the Fels-Naptha and Washing Soda are harder to find. Here, I get it all at Winco.  I don’t love Winco so this is basically all I get from there.  My friend in Utah gets her ingredients at Allen’s.

For two bars of soap, the washing soda and the borax it was $8.02.  The Borax and the washing soda will make several batches of soap each.

When I make it, I usually do a double batch and it lasts me about 6 weeks.

First,

Grate your soap. The recipe calls for 2 cups finely grated Fels-Naptha, and I find that this is about 1 bar.  I use the food processor attachment for my mix and blend. I’m too lazy to use any other grater.  The smell of Fels Naptha is pretty strong but you’ll get used to it.

Then,

Add the washing soda, borax and grated Fels Naptha to the blender and blend.

This gives me the powdery texture that I am used to with Tide.  I sometimes have to take my blender jar off the base and shake it so that it will get everything from the top mixed in.  (For anyone with the Blendtec blender, I use the big [96 oz?] jar for this – it’s a little much for the regular sized jar.)

Store in an airtight container.  Use 2 TBSP with each load of laundry.  It doesn’t create suds like store bought detergent does, so don’t be surprised by that.  My friend uses hers in a high efficiency washer, but mine is an old top loading washer.  Works great in both.  And in hot or cold water. 

There are a lot of recipes out there for homemade laundry soap.  You can find recipes for liquid soap too if you prefer that. 

Have you ever made laundry soap?  Do you want to try it now?