Friday, April 11, 2008

Laundry Soap

1 box of Borax
1 box of washing soda (not to be confused with baking soda….)
1 (small) container of generic oxyclean
1 bar of Zote
1 bar of Fels-Naptha

It took a bit to find it all, the Borax and oxyclean was easy (Wal-mart), but the others were tricky. I finally found Fels-Naptha at Safeway (in the laundry aisle) and Zote at the dollar store ( 3/ $1!!!), washing soda at Food City. The ‘upper class’ locations and chains do not really carry such items, since the people who shop there are not interested in them.

I used an old Christmas popcorn tin to mix it in. I literally just dumped all the powders in. Then I used a grater on the bar of Zote and Fels-Naptha. As I said before, the Zote powdered up well, and then I just kind of shaved little curls of the Fels-Naptha into the tin. I put the lid on and gave it a little shake and TA-DA! A total of about an hour, which included trying to figure out the technique of shaving the soap.

The recommended amount of soap/ load is 1 tablespoon for a small, lightly soiled load. 2 Tablespoons for more stubborn stuff (like just about all I do!).

I think I spent a total of $10 on the project, which included a ‘nice’ cheese grater that would be specifically dedicated to making laundry soap!


It's done great thus far, including diaper loads. I am keeping it in a gallon sized Ball jar that I found at Russ's.

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