Homemade Laundry Soap

There are so many great recipes out there for laundry soap. I had some criteria that needed to be met while researching a recipe I was going to use for my own soap. It had to be cheap, super easy, have readily accessible ingredients and of course it had to CLEAN.

I first started using equal parts of borax, washing soda, and grated felsnaptha soap, but after two weeks of washing my clothes, they became stinky from the felsnaptha. So, since Ivory soap is so cheap I decided to go with that.

Here is my recipe:

1 cup borax
1 cup washing soda
1 cup powdered Ivory soap

Grate your Ivory soap with a cheese grater and then whiz it in a blender until it has a more powdered consistency. I find that if you leave the bars unwrapped for about a week before you grate and whiz, the soap is dried out and is much easier to handle.

Mix equal parts of the borax, washing soda,  and the powdered soap together and whiz in the blender. Do this again and again, a small amount at a time, until all your ingredients are blended together.

I store my laundry powder in an old coffee container. Use 1-2 tablespoons per load. Shake the container every once in a while as the soap is heavier than the rest of the ingredients and sort of settles a bit.

For an all natural fabric softener and laundry rinse, fill a downy ball half full with white vinegar and pop that into your wash. No need for any other fabric softeners and the vinegar will clean the soap residue from your washer and clothes! It's great. You can add a few drops of essential oil, like lavender in your downy ball as well.

I like the powdered soap because it's easy. Our clothes get clean and the Ivory soap makes them smell great. I am sure you could use any soap you wanted, but I like Ivory because its cheap and doesn't contain a lot of the harsh chemicals that other soaps contain. It's definitely better than felsnaptha in the chemical department! It's about $3.50 for 10 bars. That's an awesome price.

Enjoy!