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When my kids were young, we had a phrase (that we thought was rather funny), that was useful at times: “Everybody’s doing it. Once won’t hurt.  No one will know.”

That is what came to mind today when I was thinking about this post.  For quite a while, I’ve been reading lots of different “recipes” for homemade laundry soap/detergent.  I’ve even tried making a couple of them.  In the past, I used to buy “Charlies’ Soap,” and for quite a while I was happy with it.  Then, it failed me.  My towels were smelly no matter what I did and the whites got dingy.  So, then I went back to commercial detergent.  One evening I was looking on amazon.com at the Charlies’ Soap and also Nellie’s All Natural Laundry Soda.  The reviews are very good.  I don’t know what went wrong in my house with the Charlies’.

Then, I looked at the websites for the two products and came up with a way to make my own that I thought might work, and save me money.  Many of the homemade recipes call for Fells Naptha soap, and I’m sure that works very well, but it also has toxic ingredients.  So, I didn’t want to do that.  I noticed that both of the brands I mention above seem to have coconut oil soap in them.  They also have washing soda.  One recipe I had tried that I like very much also called for table salt.  The problem I have with that one is that it is a liquid and so more trouble to make.  I wanted a powder.

Here is what I came up with.  I like it very much.  It seems to do a great job.  In normal loads (I have an HE washer) I only use 1 Tablespoon of the powder.  If the clothing is very soiled, I will use 2 Tablespoons. I must mention that we have soft water.  That makes a big difference too. 

Ingredients ~

1 bar Kirk’s original coco Castille Soap

1 cup table salt

4 cups Super Washing Soda

1.  Grate the soap in a food processor with the finest grater 

2. Mix together the grated soap, salt and soda in the food processor

and process until very well combined.

That’s it!

I keep it in an empty ice cream bucket, and have the Tablespoon scoop left from Charlies’ in there:

I also printed out the recipe and affixed it to the lid so I won’t forget how I made it:

If you try this, please come back and leave a comment and tell me what you think of it.  

If I have a significant stain on some clothing, I get that out by hand first, before laundering.  It’s easy to do with a plain bar of soap and a little scrubbing brush for most things.  I am sure that when it comes to difficult stains, i.e. grass or grease, there are other products that would be needed, but for general use, I really love this laundry soap.

2013-02-25 17:03:27

Source: http://simplyhomemaking60.blogspot.com/2013/02/everybody-is-doing-it-homemade-laundry.html