Homemade laundry soap

I have been making my own laundry soap for years, my laundry soap recipe came out of desperation for me, as a person with lots of allergies finding something that wouldn't cause hives was a necessity.

Bonus for me, I use soaps I've already made, using up bars that are older, still good, actually harder making them easier to grate. I love my homemade soaps, haven't purchased a bar of "store" soap since year 2000. Another bonus is the ingredients are simple, takes less to wash my clothes and everything comes out clean.

3 summers ago I gave a niece of mine a bag of homemade laundry soap as part of her bridal shower gift. Her husband, who is a part of the naval rescue crews, loves my laundry soap. He finds it gets the smell out of his uniform and other clothes. They loved it so much that we sent it to Guam with them to use. 

Below is how I make my laundry soap 

First I collect my ingredients and get started 

 

I grate my bars of soap, now I make large batches, so I use more than one bar, but for someone doing this for themselves a bar should do. 

Take a bar of handmade soap and grate it.

Then measure out the following; for every cup of grated soap use half cup of each of the following:

Borax, baking soda and washing soda. 

Now I put this through my food processor to blend it finer, but that isn't necessary.

I process small amounts at a time to make sure it's blended well, then I pour into my storage container.

Using this is easy, I have that little silver cup that is equal to 1/4th cup, a regular load I use half of my little cup, or 2 tablespoons of soap, heavier loads I will use more. The container I have is actually a plastic ice cream bucket, (schwans) reused it after we ate all the ice cream, hey a person needs to do their best at recycling. 

In summary 

for every cup of grated soap use 

1/2 cup borax

1/2 cup washing soda

1/2 cup baking soda

Run through a food processor ( if you don't have one that's ok)

When washing use 2 tablespoons of soap for normal wash, 3 to 4 for heavy, depending on your preference. 

Now I must tell you that this soap really doesn't suds, that is ok, sudsy water doesn't always equal clean clothes. 

Michele