anyone make homemade laundry soap?

[victoriaMember]

I was just wondering if anyone makes their own laundry soap? I’ve been doing it for a few years and I think it works good and it’s cheap to make. Anyone need the recipe?

[ponymama44Member]

yes – please. i am allergic to a lot of the commercial stuff. I would love to make my own.

[mmpaintsMember]

Well yah, please share. anything I can do that will make me more self sustained

[kymberMember]

this isn’t make your own soap but it IS how to do your laundry on the cheap – this is a post that Humble Wife (New Mexico Preppers Network) did for the CPN – have a glance – it’s a post that’s well worth the read:

http://yukonterritorypreppersnetwork.blogspot.com/2009/04/some-prep-tips-from-southwest.html” onclick=”window.open(this.href);return false

[D_LokiParticipant]

Here is a pair of soap making primers. I will try and find the pages with the laundry soap instructions.

D_Loki

http://hotfile.com/dl/22816461/442246d/How_To_Make_Soap.pdf.html

http://hotfile.com/dl/22816890/79baf2f/Palahniuk_Chuck_-_Survival_-_Homemade_Soap.txt.html

[kymberMember]

thanks D_Loki – we appreciate it!

[victoriaMember]

This is what I use.
1 bar Fels Naptha (it’s like a bar of soap for laundry, but has many other uses)
1 c. Borax (20 mule team)
1 c. washing soda (make sure it is washing soda and not baking soda)
grate the bar of Fels Naptha with an old cheese grater
put them in a pot and add 3 pints of water ,cook on low until all soap has melted and add the borax and washing soda and stir until dissolved. Pour this mixture into a clean 5 gallon bucket and add hot water up to about a little over 3/4 of a bucket ful and let sit over night.
Use 1/4-1/2 c. per load.
A few things:
You can make this a liquid by adding more water.( I don’t because it takes too many containers)
This soap does not get sudsy so don’t keep adding more to your laundry. On the good side it has hardly no surfactants or petroleum products which is better for your septic and the environment.
Depending on how much laundry I have going on a bucket of this will last me 2-3 months and costs me about three dollars to make. I don’t count the whole cost of the washing soda or borax since you don’t use the whole box in one batch. Let me know if it works for you.

[kymberMember]

yer awesome Victoria – thanks a bunch!

[ponymama44Member]

If you are looking for fels naptha soap you can always try a decent tack shop – we use it for cleaning tack and pads

[Slaw901Member]

I’ve used a similar recipe to the one posted in this forum for a bit now and I find that it works as well or better that any commercial detergent out there.

[kymberMember]

you all are a godsend….can’t wait to start making my own soap! this saturday is lookin’ like the day to try! thanks y’all!

[IceFireModerator]

Thanks for posting the “recipe” and instructions, Victoria. Now I need to stock up on washing soda, borax, and fels naptha!

[victoriaMember]

Your welcome! I have been using this for about 4 years and we think it works pretty darn well. My husband is always working on something greasy or smelly and my son works on a dairy farm. I’ll tell you though if you have laundry that’s really greasy or oily it will leave a ring in the washer which is actually good because it’s not on your clothes, anyway you know how you always have those socks that the mate has mysteriously vanished? Well I keep those in a basket in the laundry room and when I have to clean the rings out of the washer i dip a sock into the laundry soap and wipe it off. It comes right off! Just a little FYI. Oh and Fels Naptha is made by Dial so alot of times it’s somewhere near the Dial soap.

[IceFireModerator]

One question…how well does this mixture work in a high-efficiency front-load machine that uses “minimal” water? I know that a lot of soaps/detergents work differently in them than they do in a top-loader that uses way more water. Figured I’d better check on this before I made a bunch of my own. (of course, if TSHTF and we don’t have electric, I’ll be using a laundry tub and my Grandma’s old washboard!)

[victoriaMember]

HEhe I have those just in case. Well really I got them for decoration, but if I need to use them they are there! It should work ok for you since it doesn’t get all sudsy it doesn’t take as much to rinse it out. I tested this by hand actually with a few things in my sink. The homemade rinsed out faster and the commercial was still sudsy and I had to rinse it more to get it all out. If you take your laundry out the machine and there is goop on them like the soap didn’t get dissolved just add more water to your soap and make it more like liquid and that should take care of that. Let me know if it works for you.

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