Pinterest Wednesday- Laundry Detergent

A while ago, my cousin Natalie and I decided to try our hand at making our own laundry soap. We came across this recipe:

It looked fairly doable and we were in the mood for a project. I cleaned the kitchen and then took a picture of it because my kitchen is never this clean except for right before a project:

Notice the cat tail by the garbage can? Constant cat photobombing could be the title of my memoirs.

And then we were off to Meijer. We found everything we needed for the laundry soap itself in the laundry aisle (imagine that!) and then found containers in the...container aisle? Wherever all the Rubbermaid stuff is.

The first step is to grate the Fels Naptha. The original pinner made some joke about its looking like cheese but not to eat it. It really, really looks like cheese. At this point, I discovered that the smell of Fals Naptha is one of my favorite smells. Saying Fels Naptha is also a pretty good time.

Say it with me now: Fels Naptha (it's not cheese).

After you grate it, you dissolve it into some water on the stove top (for the exact recipe, please click on the first picture) and then add your Borax and Washing Soda. Eventually you pour it into a bucket. A single batch looks a little something like this:

There's more stirring and a lot more water pouring. Note to self: buy a bigger liquid measuring cup. Measuring out one gallon plus six cups of water with a one cup measure is no fun at all.

And here was our finished product! We split one batch between the two of us. I have since used mine up (it took about six weeks of doing laundry everyday) and made another full batch just for me. This is a great recipe. It's super cheap (I think we figured out we spent $8 on our ingredients and from them you can get 3 full batches. After that, you'll need another bar of fels naptha, but that was $1. The washing soda and borax will last for many, many, many batches.) and super, super easy. It's not even that time consuming (especially if you have a larger cup measure than a dinky one cup, I'd imagine). We did not add any essential oils for scent, I've always used unscented laundry soap, but you easily could. I'm still experimenting a bit with how much to use, but a quarter cup usually does well for normal to small loads and for bigger loads I add another quarter cup.

Overall, I am a huge fan of this and intend to keep making and using it!