Homemade Laundry Soap

I LOVE Pinterest!  I've found so many fun ideas there, and actually had a chance to try a few.  Well, this one pin in particular intrigued me.  I've always wanted to try making my own laundry soap and had seen this pinned quite a few times.  I figured I might as well give it a try.  I read through all the comments on the blog post and decided that it couldn't be too difficult to do and should last us a while.  If I could save some money on laundry detergent at the same time, I figured that would be a win!  I usually buy the big bottle of detergent and it lasts us quite a while.
To be honest, I'm really not sure how much we're saving or going to save because I hate doing laundry!  I do as little laundry as possible because a) I hate doing it, b) I'm never home to do it and c) I hate doing it!  Actually, maybe I should clarify that...the actual process of gathering up the clothes and physically putting them in the washer and dryer is easy.  Hubby does his own laundry and I wash my clothes and the boy's clothes, although give it another year or so and he'll be doing his own too.  It's the darn putting the clothes away that I just seem to never find the time to do!  I think I actually put clothes away 3 to 4 times a year, when mount laundry gets too high and when there's actually a day when there's nothing else planned and I go on a house-cleaning rampage!  The last time I put clothes away ended up in a trip to the hardware store after the bar in the closet came crashing down at 3am because of the weight on it!  The thing just snapped clean off the wall and made quite the racket in the middle of the night!  It didn't help that the wall support was also holding up the shelf in the closet either, and that was rather heavy as well.  The last 6 shirts I hung up did the poor thing in!  We discovered, in putting new brackets up that the closet rod was never hung level to begin with.  Funny what you learn about your house when random things start breaking and you have to fix them!

Anyway...the pin that I was going off of was here:

Source: beingcreativetokeepmysanity.blogspot.com via Erika on Pinterest

which led to this blog post.

It took me a bit of time to gather up the materials I needed because I wasn't really in a hurry, and every time I went into the store, they were always out of borax!  Eventually, I rounded everything up and had an afternoon where there were a couple of free hours for me to get it made.  The longest part was grating up the soap.  Since we've got a front loader, I not only grated the bar of soap, but ran it through the food processor as well to make sure that it turned into a really fine powder that would dissolve easier.  I also added in a bottle of Purex crystals to give the detergent a bit of a scent.

All that's needed for the soap is: (it can all be found in the laundy soap aisle at walmart)
3 bars fels naptha (I grated them up and then ran it through the food processor)
1 box borax
1 box washing soda
1 4lb box baking soda
1 tub powdered oxyclean (I used the larger, 3lb one)
1 bottle purex crystals (optional for a light scent)

I'm pretty sure we're going to have laundry detergent for a LONG time!  It only takes 1 to 2 tablespoons per load, and with as much detergent as this makes, a tablespoon is nothing!  I add the mix right in the drum when I do a load, instead of putting it in the soap dispenser on top.  I'm not sure why, but everything I read said to do it this way, so I do!  I finally found a big jar at walmart, and just had to make it look fun.  To be honest, I really was just looking for another glass etching project!  I don't remember what font I used, but I thought it looked fun.  I grabbed some spare vinyl, cut it out, weeded and put it on the jar, then let the etching cream sit for a bit before rinsing it off.  I'm pretty pleased with the result, and so far the soap seems to be working like every other brand of laundry soap that we've ever used.  As long as the clothes come out looking and smelling clean, it's a winner in my book!  Now, if I could just solve the putting-the-clothes away issue!