Tuesday Tips - How to Make Laundry Soap

How to Make Laundry Soap


I posted a few days ago about how much money could be saved by making your own laundry soap. So today, I will show you how simple it is to make it. Put away those thoughts of "homemade" being too complicated or too much trouble.  I have made super easy instructions. Now there are no excuses!

Step 1: Boil a quart of water, then pour it into a clean bucket or garbage can. A quart canning jar works perfectly as a measuring cup.  The purpose of this is to heat up the plastic so that the soap, in the next step, won’t immediately cool and solidify when poured into the bucket.
Step 2: Boil another quart of water with soap and powder. The soap is one grated bar of soap. Fals Naphtha is supposed to be the best soap for the job, but I’ve yet to find it! The powder is ½ cup of Borax and ½ cup washing soda. Dump it all in and let it boil until the powder is dissolved and the soap is melted.
Dump this into the bucket with the hot water. Because there will be a lot of soapy residue in the pot and I try my best to waste nothing, I boil the remaining water need for the recipe.

Step 3: Boil a quart of water to clean out the pot. I just swish it around and scrape off any bits of soap that stuck to it. Then dump it in the bucket. 

Step 4: Repeat step 3. Dump it in the bucket and mix it up. Then you let it just sit there and cool and thicken.

Really, that’s all there is to it. This will make 64 ¼ cup uses. It makes one gallong of a nice and thick laundry soap that is very easy to deal with (notice the spoon standing straight up). Just scoop and plop into the washer.

At only 1.5 cents per load, I am only spending 3 cents a day on soap. ($10.92 per year)  Compare that to the name brand stuff at 20 cents per load.  2 loads a day adds up to $145.60 in a year's time.  Heck, that's enough savings to buy a dairy goat!