Homemade liquid laundry soap

 Here is the recipe I use to make my liquid laundry soap. I totally feel like a hippy making this stuff. First cloth diapers, now homemade laundry soap!! I am the last person on this planet that I would ever think would use either of those things. But I love both and am saving ridiculous amounts of money. So this soap, it's easy, it works, and its cheap. And when I say it works, I mean it reeeeeealy works. My laundry soap has to get our stains out, smell good, and not leave any residue on our clothes. And this does all of the above. Even dried baby poop comes completely out. And you only need 1 TBS per load! That's it! It's super concentrated and I promise it works.

So first you need three ingredients.
1 box Borax
1 box Super Washing Soda
1 bar of Fels Naptha soap

I found all of these at Walmart. All together I spent about $10. So it costs about $1.50 for 100 loads of laundry. Yep. That is for reals.
You also need a blender, and TWO glass mason jars.

Step 1 is to grate your soap. I don't recommend using a food processor because it doesn't get the soap shredded fine enough. So use a cheese grater with small holes and grate it as fine as you can. The smaller the soap pieces, the faster it will melt.

Step 2 is to add 5 cups of water to a large pot. Bring to a boil. Add your grated soap. With a wooden spoon, continue to stir the soap until dissolved. The first time I did this it took me about a half hour to dissolve it all, but that's because my soap wasn't grated fine enough and the heat wasn't up high enough. So keep the heat high, but not too high where it foams up to much. The second time I did this, it only took 10 minutes to dissolve completely.  

 

Step 3 is to remove soap from heat and add your dry ingredients. 

Add 1 cup borax and 1 cup super washing soda

Next, stir. stir. stir. For about 10 minutes. The dry ingredients need to completely dissolve. You'll feel a grittyness on the bottom of the pan, when that is gone, stir or 5 more minutes.

Step 4 is to add the soap to your mason jars. Fill both jars half way to 3/4 up with soap then fill the rest with water, up to the shoulder of the jar. 

 Step 5 is to turn the jars upside down and let it separate. It should start separating immediately. Let the jars sit for and hour or 2. The ingredients need to separate and thicken.

When you can turn the jar sideways and it all stays firm and doesn't move, it is ready.

 Step 6 is to get out the blender. Unscrew the blade and screw it right on to the lid of your mason jar. Did you know you could do this?? I didn't!!

Step 7. This step is optional, but I like things to smell good. I add some essential oil, I've used lemon and citrus bliss, it's a vanilla orange scent, totally heavenly. But the soap has a clean enough scent without any oils so it's totally up to you 

 Step 8 Blend. Leave the blender on for a few minuets to really get things mixed up. It's mixing and whipping the soap into a dreamy smooth looking liquid. It looks a lot like mayonnaise.

Step 9 pour it into a container. You can  keep it in the jars if you want but I think its easier to put it into something a little bigger. I use a Tupperware, just to keep it air tight and moist. I keep a tablespoon measuring spoon in it to use. And I put a label on it for the hubs to know what to do. :) My label used to be for the powder detergent that needed 2 Tbs so I had to edit. :)

And thats it folks! Try it and let me know what you think of it! I do add fabric softener to the laundry, either store bought, or a half cup of vinegar gets the job done nicely. Also, I have a top loading machine, but I've heard you can use this soap in front loaders perfectly fine. And the water doesn't need to be hot to use either, any temperature is fine. Let's see......I think thats it! Enjoy saving crazy amounts of money on laundry soap!!