Washing Day...

I have been thinking about making my own laundry detergent for some time. Several of my friends make theirs with excellent results, and my mother-in law has made her own for over 20 years. Her's was liquid though, and I just couldn't see storing a 5gal bucket of detergent in my household (recipe for disaster I say!). So when I ran across THIS recipe the other day, it looked easy enough for me to manage and it was powder! Like with most of my attempts, I ran into a few hitches, but it was still really easy and it works GREAT! I decided to chronicle this attempt to share with ya'll!

First I gathered my supplies, Borax, Washing Soda, and a Fels Naptha soap bar... I used two bars because I wanted to double the recipe...

Notice the grater in the picture above??? The recipe said I could use one instead of a food processor if i wanted to, and i didn't want to get my processor all junky so I figured that was what I would do....Let me say, I had no where near the patience it would have taken to hand grind that bar of soap!!!!! So then I decided to use the food processor method...

Take the Fels Naptha and chunk it up...

I love the way these bars look! So old-timey!

Then put the chunks in the processor and grind....

Or in my case, stall your cheapo $20 processor and have to find an alternate route to get the soap to a size the processor thinks it can manage.....

This thing has been lying around in my cabinet for ages....it worked like a charm though!

So after the hand grinder it looked like this....

THEN i was able to put it back in the processor to grind to a powdery texture....

OK so not so fine a texture...I was late making dinner, so I needed to speed things up! 

Then you add 1 cup each of Borax and Washing Soda to each bar of soap used (so in my case i used 2 cups Borax and 2 cups Washing Soda) 

                                   

Mix together and VIOLA! laundry detergent!

The stuff work great! I was a little worried about how chunky I had left the Naptha, but it dissolves just fine. In fact it works much better than the detergent i have been buying! Hello to eco and budget friendly laundering!!!!