I ran into a couple of Eugene Chapter members at the store while I was looking for laundry soap. They gave me this recipe for making homemade Laundry Soap.
Use for top load or front load machine.
Ingredients:
- 4 cups – hot tap water
- 1 Fels-Naptha soap bar
- 1 cup of arm & Hammer Super washing Soda*
- 1/2 cup Borax
Directions:
- Grate bar of soap and add to saucepan with water.
- Stir continually over medium-low heat until soap dissolves and is melted.
- Fill a 5 gallon bucket half full of hot tap water.
- Add melted soap, washing soda and Borax.
- Stir well until all powder is dissolved.
- Fill bucket to top with more hot water.
- Stir, cover and let sit overnight to thicken.
- Stir and fill a used, clean laundry soap dispenser half full with soap and then fill rest of way with water.
- Shake before each use. (will gel)
- Optional: You can add 10 – 15 drops of essential oil per 2 gallons. Add once soap has cooled. Ideas: Lavender, Rosemary, Tea Tree Oil
Yield: Liquid soap recipe makes 10 gallons.
Top Load Machine – 5/8 cup per load (approx 180 loads)
Front load machines 1.4 cup per load (approx 640 loads)
*Arm & Hammer “Super Washing Soda” in some stores (or may be purchased online at www.Meijer.com)
Baking Soda will not work, nor will Arm & Hammer Detergent – It must be sodium carbonate!!
Personally, we don’t bother with diluting, just use a cup dipped out of the 5 gallon bucket and put directly into machine. Remember, we have hard water. Friends that I have shared this recipe with in town are ok with diluting. I do wash our clothes in warm water for colors and hot for whites. I don’t know how it would work with cold water.
Hope you enjoy this “down home” recipe. It was great seeing you in Winco. Thanks for all the work you do for WAPF. Just got my Wise Traditions yesterday. Am going out to greenhouse to plant some veggies and check on my flowers. I will take my tea with me and my Wise Traditions!
– Doug & Cheryl
