Did you ever notice how much more expensive your grocery bill is when you have to buy all the cleaning/paper products, and especially laundry detergent? I would always dread that trip, knowing I would spend and extra $12-$17 on laundry soap. Thank goodness for my friend Tena who shared this liquid laundry soap recipe with me last year. She's been using this for a couple of years now, and neither one of us are even thinking about going back to the expensive stuff with who knows what in the ingredients. This recipe calls for 3 ingredients, plus water, and makes full 3 gallons at a time. I recommend getting a 5 gallon bucket and a paint stirrer attachment for a cordless drill (which only cost about $2.) Our clothes are as clean or cleaner than they have ever been and they smell fresh. You can add essential oils to this if you prefer a certain smell, but I used fabric softener which I think is what gives our clothes a fresh scent.
These are the three ingredients that will give you gallons upon gallons of laundry soap.
The recipe calls for 1/2 Cup each of Washing Soda and 20 Mule Team Borax
& only 1/3 of a bar of Fels Naptha soap grated.
Or here are the ingredients individually:
That means one bar of Fels Naptha will make 9 gallons of laundry soap.
Start by melting the grated Fels Naptha soap in 3 cups of water on medium heat at a simmer until completely melted. Do not let this boil or it will bubble over! Once that's completely melted, add the Borax and Washing Soda until they are dissolved, just about a minute or two.
Then add the melted soap mixture to your 5 gallon bucket filled with 3 gallons of water. Stir it up really good and then let it sit for 24 hours.
After the 24 hours, your soap will be set up a little bit. Stir it again really good and then pour into your choice of container. We use old jugs from the distilled water we buy. If you have a large enough space, you could even put this in a pretty beverage dispenser.
This is definitely worth doing if you are looking to save money and know exactly what's in your soap! Use about as much as you would with a store bought soap, about a capful. This is a great all purpose soap we used it on everything for over a year, and then Tena brought me another easy recipe to use on whites to keep them super bright. The Bright Whites soap recipe coming soon!
