Grate up the soap with a cheese grater, then throw it in the pot of boilin' water

Well a few months back I mentioned my homemade laundry detergent and bragged about what a great job it did getting our clothes clean. There was only one problem: it was lumpy. This must be because I used half a bar of Fels Naphtha soap ( which I completely forgot to use this time). I made some more laundry soap on Saturday, and this time it’s smooth as silk. This is because I used a whole bar of Dove soap, which Jessica doesn’t like becuase it makes her feel greasy. Maybe because it’s one-quarter moisturizing cream? Hopefully it doesn’t make our clothes feel like that, but it’s SOAP for heaven’s sake. Soap is supposed to remove grease. How they ever make soap out of one quarter moisturizing cream I’ll never know. Of course I also add borax to the mix, and if Dove soap is sweet and fluffy moisturizing cream, borax is the sandblaster of the detergent world. (At least I hope it is.) Dove vs. sandblaster? Borax wins. I’ll let you know if I feel greasy.

Here’s the REE-sype (adapted from The Simple Dollar, thank you!)

1 pot boiling water

1 bar o’soap (as discussed above. Also, Jess and I save all those thin little soap slivers from when the bar of soap gets too small to use in the shower. They dry up and we keep them in a box until soap making time. Better’n wasting them.)

1 cup borax

1 cup baking soda

Grate the soap on a potato grater. (The grater gets all soapy, but you can just throw it in the dishwasher when you’re done.) Sprinkle the soap particles into the boiling water and stir them up into mush. Use a metal spoon—easier to clean. When it’s all stirred in, turn off the heat and go fill up a 4-gallon bucket with hot water in the tub. Throw in the borax and baking soda while it’s filling.

Leave enough space at the top for your pot o’soap, dump that in, and cover it up. Trent says to let it sit for 24 hours, but who has time for that? I used mine on a batch of laundry the same afternoon. Nobody’s mentioned greasiness yet.

This makes enough laundry soap for 64 loads of laundry if you use a cup per batch, but at our house we’re cheapskates who also have a front-loading washer so we don’t need much soap to begin with. Maybe 1/3 cup, maybe 1/4. The former will stretch the bucket of soap to 192 loads, the latter to 256 (1 gallon = 16 cups). Granted, with 9 people living in a house surrounded by animals and dirt, we probably do more laundry than some people, but still. Cheap covers a multitude of sins.

And thanks for your input on the frequency of posts. As you’ve noticed, I’m moving to three posts weekly for now. Thanks for your comments and support.