Adventures in Domesticity -- Liquid Laundry Soap Edition

As I mentioned in my entry about my home made dishwasher detergent I have also been making my own laundry soap. I tried powder but as I also said before -- we love laundry soap that smells really good in my house -- especially the beej. He's not sure it's clean unless it smells really fresh. I wasn't so happy with the powdered because I didn't feel it got incorporated very well together and once I got to a certain point the bits of shaved soap weren't getting any smaller. I also ran through the soap much more quickly and it made less than the recipe said.

After hunting around a bit I found a recipe that I could make in my 3 gallon bucket. Most of the recipes I found were for HUGE batches in 5 gallon buckets, so I was happy to run across it. I was also armed with the knowledge from reading the comments on other recipes that I could add essential oils to my liquid laundry soap.

The recipe called for the following ingredients:

1/3 bar Fels-Naptha or Zote laundry soap (or any other bar soap that doesn't have added scents, like ivory)

1/2 cup Washing Soda

1/2 cup Borax

10-15 drops of essential oil per 2 gallons (my addition)

I decided to add Tea Tree oil for its antiseptic qualities (and I like the way it smells) and Lavender oil. Oils are sort of expensive, but I already had these on hand and so little is used at a time that it is still economical. I used 8 drops of each because . 

I also doubled the soda and the borax to increase the washing power since BJ is a chef and his coats and chef pants get pretty greasy and nasty. 

So then the recipe calls for you to: 

• grate the soap and add to 6 cups of water and heat until soap melts

•   add the washing soda and borax and stir until it dissolves

• remove from heat and put 4 cups of hot water into your bucket

• add the soap mixture and stir

• then add 1 gallon and 6 cups of water and stir

• let the soap sit for 24 hours to gel (should be an egg drop soup like consistency)

• add the oil after the soap has completely cooled (took about 8 hours)

Use 1/2 cup per load of laundry. I double it for the load of BJ's chef/ work clothes that I do weekly.

I originally intended to keep the soap stored in the bucket, but didn't want to have stir it every time I used it so I began looking for a container that would make it easy to store and then shake and pour. I had just happened to buy some cat litter (don't worry I washed the container out REALLY REALLY well) and was happy to not have to put the container in the trash. It works out really well. 

Yup. Next I need to think of a clever name for my soap so I can make a cool label for the container.

I didn't smell the oil after my first load but noticed that I liked the cleaning power of this homemade soap A LOT more than I liked the powder soap. My pastels and whites didn't seem dingy anymore which I loved.

So I did a little more digging around and found suggestions to add oil to the rinse cycle. I use a downy ball filled with white vinegar as a rinse aid (it is supposed to be good for removing soap residue) and I add 10 drops of oil to the downy ball.

I didn't have a dropper for the oil so I cleaned out this bottle and dropper (which used to be infant gas drops).

I still don't notice much of the smell on the clothes come out of the wash. But I like that it smells good while I'm doing laundry.

I'm not sure what I'm going to try next to increase the "smell good". But I do know that next time I make the detergent I'm going to do all tea tree oil in the detergent and add lavender to only the rinse aid. I'm also going to double the Fels-Naptha to make the soap a little more concentrated.

I'm sort of ok with my clothes not smelling strong since the smell goes away pretty quickly with the strongly smelling store bought detergents but I think I'll have to start adding bounce sheets to BJ's chef stuff. Unless, I can come up with some other idea for smell good! lol -- maybe a wash cloth that soaks in oil and water in between loads of laundry?

Next I'm going to make some household cleaners!