Homemade products

I've been making my own laundry detergent for while now. I started by using this recipe

Homemade Laundry Soap

1/3 bar Fels Naptha or other type of soap, as listed above

½ cup washing soda

½ cup borax powder

~You will also need a small bucket, about 2 gallon size~

Grate the soap and put it in a sauce pan. Add 6 cups water and heat it until the soap melts. Add the washing soda and the borax and stir until it is dissolved. Remove from heat. Pour 4 cups hot water into the bucket. Now add your soap mixture and stir. Now add 1 gallon plus 6 cups of water and stir. Let the soap sit for about 24 hours and it will gel. You use ½ cup per load.

But I didn't get really good results with it. (But I've heard that lots of people do, so give it a try if you're inclined.) And it takes a really long time to make and requires a really big container. I usually ended up using one big stock pot and whatever other large container I had at the time. I then found that it lumped up quite a bit in the month or two that it took to use it up.

I then tried a larger concentration of Fels Napa, Borax, and Washing Soda. It was a no go, so I did a combination of store bought and homemade.

A couple of months ago I decided to try this recipe:

Powdered Laundry Detergent

2 cups Fels Naptha Soap (finely grated - you could also try the other bar soaps listed at the top)
1 cup Washing Soda
1 cup Borax

• Mix well and store in an airtight plastic container.
• Use 2 tablespoons per full load.

It just didn't seem to work as well as people were saying.

Then I remembered reading that one person added 1/4- 1/2c oxyclean to this mix and had good results. I tried it and is works great. Still use about 2 Tbl. I love it and it is so much cheaper than store bought detergents!!! It does take a while to grate the soap, but if you have a food processor you can grate the soap and then use the blade to cut the soap into smaller pieces. Easy Peasy!! And Cheap.

This recipe seems to last about a month and a half. I made my last recipe 10/25 and will report back when I finish it. There are 6 in my family. I probably do 5-10 loads of laundry a week.