Oh YES I DID!

Do you have those things in your life which you think "I would NEVER do that!" or perhaps "WHY on earth would I want to do that?" or even "Sounds good, BUT it isn't for me!"

Well my thing was homemade laundry soap.

Yup.  I always thought that it sounded like WAY to much work to save some money.  All the measuring and melting and stirring, you know all those recipes for making it on the stove top???  Sounded like a lot of work.  And while I know the recipe works for people, I already make so many things from scratch, I just didn't want another "thing" to make.

Then I stumbled upon some dry laundry soap recipes.  As simple as grating soap and mixing it up with a couple other things.  "Hmmm, well maybe it wouldn't be so much work" I thought.  I still wasn't to keen on shredding an entire bar of soap.  But I thought, I will give it a go.

So I bought the ingredients.  Borax, Fels Naptha soap bar, and Arm and Hammer Super Washing soda.   They have sat on top of my dryer waiting for months for me to finish up my Purex allergen free that I had.

Note:  I found Target carried all three ingredients, as did Cub Foods.  Otherwise look online. 

Well, today was the day to make it.  (I may have been out of laundry soap and may have had a stack of dirty clothes that my family was requesting be cleaned.  Whiners.)

I tweaked the recipe just a bit, but here is what I did.

I took the bar of soap and microwaved it for one minute, 30 seconds.  It kinda foamed up.  I recommend letting it cool a bit before working with it.  (um, I may have not waited and burnt the tips of my fingers, or maybe not, but really~take my word for it ~ wait till it cools.)  I put the foaming bar of soap in my Ninja blender (still waiting for a Vitamix, someday, I have dreams about owning one of those bad boys.  Notice, they are NEVER on Craigslist....) and blended that bar of soap right up.  I added two cups of Borax and 2 cups of Arm and Hammer.  I blended again.  Then I poured it into a leftover plastic Tupperware container (I only use glass for food storage now, but I held onto my plastic stuff for projects like this...).  Also, NOTE: you may want to cover up any food on the counter top.  It isn't fun to have soap flying through the air and landing onto your yummy apple crisp.  Using an extra coffee scoop I had on hand, I can now use one to two scoops for washing.  YEAH!  I also added about 20 drops of essential oils for "smell" factor.  I recommend lavender or lemon.  When I was done making it, I was all like, "Wow, that only took minutes to make!  What on earth was I waiting for?"

So to recap:

1 bar Fels Naptha Soap bar
2 cups Borax
2 cups Arm and Hammer Super Washing Soda

Microwave soap bar for 1:30 minutes, blend in blender with other ingredients.  Pour into container.  Use 1-2 tablespoons per load of laundry.

Note: skill level EASY!

Now I can say to myself... "WHY did I not make this sooner."  It is always something, I tell you.

Do you have a favorite laundry soap recipe?  Feel free to share your link below.