How to make your own Natural Homemade Laundry Soap

Why spend tons of money on expensive 'green' commercial laundry detergents when you can make your own?  The recipe below costs only a total of $4-6.00 and makes two gallons (256 ounces).  For roughly the same amount of Seventh Generation Liquid Laundry detergent you would pay upwards of $20-25.00.  That's a savings of about 75-80 percent!

You only need four ingredients, plus a stockpot, a long stirring spoon, a grater, a funnel and two jugs to put your homemade soap into after you are done.

Ingredients:

• 1 bar of soap your choice.  (If you want your laundry soap to be as natural as possible, then you probably should use a natural bar soap as well. There are many choices out there.  Be sure to pick a scent you love!  This is what your clothes are going to smell like!)
• 1 cup Borax
• 1 cup Washing Soda
• 2 gallons distilled water (using tap water could cause bacteria to grow after several months.)

Directions:

1. Grate the bar of soap into the stock pot.
2. Pour one gallon of distilled water into pot.
3. Heat until soap dissolves. stirring will help.
4. Add borax and washing soda.
5. Bring to a boil.  The mixture will coagulate. (Be careful to watch and stir, otherwise it could boil over and let me tell you, this highly concentrated soap is no fun to try to wipe up!)
6. Turn off heat. Add second gallon of water.
7. Stir well until uniform consistency.
8. Using a large funnel, pour soap into gallon jugs of choice. Be sure to go slowly or it will bubble up and not all fit.
9. Soap will thicken as it cools. 
10. The first time you use it, it will have gelled.  Shake it up firmly.

* Your soap will be affected by the temperature of the room it is kept in, making it thicker if it is cold and thinner when hot.

** Use 1/2 cup per average size load of laundry in a standard machine. About 2 Tablespoons for average size load in High Efficiency machines, add another tablespoon for higher soil level.

I have been making and using this now for a couple of years and just love it!  It's fun to make, far more economical and lasts us for about six months (doing an average of 3-4 high efficiency loads a week.)

Happy Laundry! :-)