Sunday, October 23, 2011

Crafty or crazy?

Recently, I have been thinking about doing something. I mean REALLY thinking about it for a long time. I guess you could say I finally decided to stop weighing everyone else's pros and cons and try it for myself. "What could this be" you ask?

Homemade laundry soap (aka "washing powders" if you're in the South) 

Did you cringe like I did the first time I heard of someone making it? Sounds a little crazy right? Granted, if it works and I really like it, this could save a LOT of money in the next several months. Couldn't hurt to try.

Oh, and I took pictures of the process because in all the blogs I've read about homemade laundry soap, not one of them had pictures and I am a VERY picture-oriented person. I might have tried this sooner if I just would have had some pictures to look at! 

First, the ingredients. Total cost for these three items was approximately $9.00 (I should get two batches out of the bar of soap, and probably 5-8 batches out of the Borax and Washing Soda.) Recipe calls for 2 cups of grated Fels-Naptha soap, 1 cup Borax, 1 cup Washing Soda, and you use 2 Tbsp per full load of laundry.



I cut the Fels-Naptha soap into chunks so it would be easier to grate


And used my handy dandy cheese grater because I always seem to lose a nail or a chunk of skin when I try grate something by hand. No bueno.



It kind of looks like cheese. And it took a pretty long time to grate so I took breaks every once in a while.



This picture has nothing to do with the soap, and everything to do with our dinner. We bought a "double pack" of baby back ribs to grill for dinner and this is a picture of Matt discovering what the second set of ribs looks like. He is feeling a little jipped. I thought it was hilarious!



Okay, back to the soap. I took another break from grating to measure out 1 cup of washing soda. (this is NOT the same as baking soda).



Then I measured 1 cup of Borax.



And finally finished grating 2 cups of cheese er, soap.






Then mix everything together. I used a fork to help break down some of the bigger pieces of soap from the grater. I suppose a finer grater would be better, but it all melts the same, and as long as you get it mixed together really good, I really don't see what the difference would be.



Just happened to have an empty canister so I'm keeping the soap in there.


I just put the first load of laundry using this soap into the dryer. They definitely didn't smell perfume-y when I pulled them out of the wash, but smelled clean. I'll be interested to see what we think once they're out of the dryer!

All in all, this was really easy and fun. As long as it cleans my clothes as well as the major laundry brands, I think I'll keep it up for a while! Let me know if you try it and what you think!

Oh, then I made 2-ingredient lemon bars, and they nearly exploded in the oven. I have the worst luck with Pinterest recipes....



~SMurph~

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