So, yesterday I talked all about DIY room refreshers… today it’s all moved to the laundry room. Yeah, we went Little House on the Prairie and totally made our own laundry detergent.
Oh, I know it looks fancy.
David’s sister Judith (who, by the way, blogs over here) has been making her own soap for her family for a while now, and David got bitten by the bug. He ordered all the “ingredients” off of Amazon, and got to making the brew over the weekend.
The making-of process takes a full 24 hours. A low-stress, totally hands-off 24 hours.
- 1 bar natural soap (we used Dr. Bronner’s Lavender scent)
- 1 cup washing soda
- 1 cup borax
- 5 gallons water (give or take)
- Large pot
- 5 gallon bucket (washed out!)
- Essential oils (we used Bergamot and Lavender!)
- We start at the kind-of weird beginning. Take a cheese grater and grate your bar of soap until it looks like parmesan cheese.
- Fill a large pot with water and boil. Add the soap a little at a time and boil until everything is dissolved.
- In the bucket, mix together 4 gallons of water, washing soda and borax. Stir until dissolved. Add the water/soap mixture, and stir until combined.
- Cover the bucket and set aside for at least 24 hours. The mixture will eventually solidify and combine, leaving you with soap!
After 24 hours, you’re going to have 5 gallons of laundry soap *concentrate*. In order to use, dilute the soap by half with water, and use 1/2 cup of the diluted solution per load.
In order to have better access to our soap, we punched a hole in the lid of a mason jar and inserted a pump, like so:
We’ve literally been using a shot glass to measure out the soap for our washer! We aren’t the cocktail Friday house for nothing. We’ve been scenting each individual jar of soap with drops of essential oil.
Oh, and for natural fabric softener, we’re eschewing sheets and using these guys:
I. KNOW.
Have you ever tried to make your own soap?
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
O.M.G. HEDGEHOG DRYER BALLS.
I’ve never done the “make my own detergent” thing, but perhaps I will try…
Kim recently posted..BlogHer 2012
I’ve been seriously thinking about making my own dish detergent lately. I’m so tired of buying containers of it and it has to be at least a little cheaper. Thanks for the tutorial. Those hedgehog dryer balls are seriously the cutest thing EVER.
Ada recently posted..There’s Something About Pie
the next thing on my list is hand soap. we are compulsive/freaky handwashers in our house (two dogs will do that to you) and we go through SO much. i saw a “recipe” and i think we can use the same bars that we bought to make hand soap. gonna be trying that this weekend!
This is gonna sound horrible, but I LOVE YOUR BALLS! I’ve had all the ingredients to make this stuff for months now. I just need to get down to business and get it done! Love the addition of essential oils to each small jar. Great idea!
hehehehehe. when i saw them i hollered, “hedgehog balls!’ and the manfriend had NO idea what i was yapping about :-)