Laundry Detergent

[mini]

For lack of a better area to post this, I thought I would share a little something Chel and I have started doing.  This is from The Simple Dollar (click for link to article).

I've been experimenting with making lots of cleaning supplies at home, but this one is by far the craziest - and the most successful. Basically, I made a giant bucket of slime that works incredibly well as laundry detergent at a cost of about three cents a load. For comparison's sake, a jumbo container of Tide at Amazon.com costs $28.99 for 96 loads, or a cost of $0.30 a load. We paid $10 for a Tide 200oz (on sale).  That makes it 1.56 gallons, and 64 loads, or $0.15 a load. -minnie Thus, with each load of this stuff, I'm saving more than a quarter. Even better - I got to make a giant bucket of slime in the kitchen and my wife approved of it.

Here's what you need:
- 1 bar of soap (whatever kind you like; I first used Lever 2000 because we have tons of bars of it from a case we bought a while back)
- 1 box of washing soda (look for it in the laundry detergent aisle at your local department store - it comes in an Arm & Hammer box and will contain enough for six batches of this stuff)
- 1 box of borax (this is not necessary, but I've found it really kicks the cleaning up a notch - one box of borax will contain more than enough for tons of batches of this homemade detergent - if you decide to use this, be careful)
- A five gallon bucket with a lid (or a bucket that will hold more than 15 liters - ask around - these aren't too tough to acquire)
- Three gallons of tap water
- A big spoon to stir the mixture with
- A measuring cup
- A knife

Step One: Put about four cups of water into a pan on your stove and turn the heat up on high until it's almost boiling. While you're waiting, whip out a knife and start shaving strips off of the bar of soap into the water, whittling it down. Keep the heat below a boil and keep shaving the soap. Eventually, you'll shave up the whole bar, then stir the hot water until the soap is dissolved and you have some highly soapy water.

Step Two: Put three gallons of hot water (11 liters or so) into the five gallon bucket - the easiest way is to fill up three gallon milk jugs worth of it. Then mix in the hot soapy water from step one, stir it for a while, then add a cup of the washing soda. Keep stirring it for another minute or two, then add a half cup of borax if you are using borax. Stir for another couple of minutes, then let the stuff sit overnight to cool.

And you're done. When you wake up in the morning, you'll have a bucket of gelatinous slime that's a paler shade of the soap that you used (in our case, it's a very pale greenish blue). One measuring cup full of this slime will be roughly what you need to do a load of laundry - and the ingredients are basically the same as laundry detergent. Thus, out of three gallons, you'll get about 48 loads of laundry. If you do this six times, you'll have used six bars of soap ($0.99 each), one box of washing soda ($2.49 at our store), and about half a box of borax ($2.49 at our store, so $1.25) and make 288 loads of laundry. This comes up to a cost of right around three cents a gallon, or a savings of $70.

Plus, you can make slime in the kitchen - and have a legitimate reason for doing so!
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I think the guys figuring is a little off.  On our latest batch, the cost comes out something like this:
1 bar Dove soap.........$0.83
1 cup Washing Soda...$0.40
1/2 cup Borax.............$0.20
Total............................$1.43 for a little over 3 Gallons of Laundry Detergent

Figuring like the Tide, the three gallons would be roughly 128 loads of laundry, which comes out to a little over $0.01 a load!  I am saving about $18 every time I make a batch of this slime.

One thing on the melting the bar of soap:  Use a cheese grater (fine as you can get) and use it.  My first batch I used the knife, and it took about a hour to finally get it all melted down.  Tonight it took Chel and Me about 10 minutes total to make the stuff.

Also make sure you use soap that you like.  We had bought some Zest citrus smelling stuff on sale and I used it the first time.  If you want everything to smell like the soap, use it.  LOL  If not, use something you like.

The washing soda was the hardest to find of the ingredients.  We finally found it at Homeland.  The official product name is All Natural Super Washing Soda.

[MelodyB]

Interesting

[myhaloisintheshop]

If I can find the washing soda I may try this!  We don't have a Homeland store around here though

[mini]

The soap I made last night looks just like regular laundry detergent.

[myhaloisintheshop]

how does it smell?

[mini]

Like whatever soap you use.  We used dove last night, so it smells just like dove soap.

[amanda16]

if i get my moms okay im tryin this.. bar soap is hard to come by these days though..

[okieoliveoyl]

you are odd... very odd!!

[dnr1128]

A cheap laundry detergent/body wash is Dawn dish soap.  I use it on the rig to wash both my clothes and myself, since often I end my shift covered in grease, oil, and diesel, and dawn breaks down all of those things quite well. 

[Melody]

how is the texture of your clothes minnnie?  I know that without fabric softener, my clothes are a bit stiff, and it seems to affect the color.  Are your clothes soft?  Or do they have that clothesline feel?

[Melody]

ok, still waiting on an answer but I sent this to some friends and they are having trouble finding washing soda.  However, while googling for it on the net I found some folks talking that if you bake baking soda for one hour on 300*F that it would be washing soda and a better purity because baking soda is made a higher quality than washing soda for food purposes.  Can anyone confirm or deny this?

http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums/general-reef-aquarium-discussion/8804-sodium-carbonate.html

and also came across this:

http://www.diaperpin.com/clothdiapers/article_bakingsoda.asp

I'm am no chemist and have no idea which if any of what was said in those links is valid.  If baked baking soda does= washing soda though, that would take care of the delima of finding it.

[netter]

If you read down the posts on the aquarium site you see that there is a person who does the baking of the baking soda himself and explains stuff. I'd say it's a go. Sounds like a great money saving tip to try!

[Melody]

OK, I've been reinspired to do this.  I bought lavender bar soap 4/1.99, borax 2.99, and washing soda 3.99.  (all at Hy-Vee)

I used the cheese grater to work the bar soap down and will let you all know how it turns out.  I'm excited!