Homemade Laundry Soap

Good morning HoNeys! A couple of days ago on my Facebook Fan Page I mentioned that I was making my own laundry detergent. I was interested in doing this for a number of reasons, but the top two being we're ALWAYS washing cloth diapers, and I was diagnosed with Atopic dermatitis.  One of my crunchy mama friends from Crafty Earth Mama happened to post about making her own laundry detergent late last month, and I became extremely interested as it only used four ingredients. Borax, Super Washing Soda, Baking Soda and Castille Soap.

I did look for variations on-line to see how much they changed and the only thing that I saw that was consistent was the lack of Borax and the change up of the kind of soap that they used. For example, instead of Castille Soap (which I found in a local grocery store here in Chicago, called Jewel) I've seen the use of Fels Naptha (a laundry bar soap)

 and Zote (another laundry bar soap)

The recipe that Crafty Mama used was 1 cup Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda (make sure that this is NOT baking soda, as you will skew your mixture - we use baking soda in the mixture, but not this much) ½ cup of Baking Soda, ½ cup of Borax, ¼ cup of liquid castille soap (she used Dr. Bronner's) and 2 cups of hot water.

I changed my mixture up by using flakes of bar LAUNDRY soap instead of the liquid castille soap. And that's the only difference in my soap mixture.

You mix all of the dry ingredients together, and then add the liquid and wait.

I will say, that almost immediately, I got scared because I thought that I did it wrong. She stated that everything would end up looking like moist crystals, and mine looked like soapy water! YIKES! However, after a couple of minutes and allowing the water to settle, it did become a crystal like mixture and I breathed a sigh of relief.

I store my laundry detergent in a large mason jar, and so far I've only washed the baby clothes with it. I'm pleased, but I do think that I will add a couple of drops of an essential oil just for scent when I wash my laundry. Yes, I need a "little" scent with my laundry, however, as far as the baby clothes - it's absolutely perfect!

If you do try this, link up and let me know!

~Make It A Fantastic Day!