MIY Monday: Good Old-Fashioned Laundry Soap

 Whew, it's been a busy few weeks, and I don't really know why, since it's supposed to be summer time and all.  There's been birthday parties and weddings... we attended a 40th Anniversary vow renewal yesterday where the bride was an hour and a half late!  We figured she couldn't really be a runaway bride since she'd already been in this gig for 40 years ... and she did finally make it to the ceremony, thankfully. (She also let us all know that she had been on time for the original wedding) (wink) By the way, the sweet ceremony was worth the wait.

I don't really know what else has been keeping us busy other than the usual house-cleaning, toddler chasing, meal prepping stuff...  so I thought I would procrastinate on my to-do list on this hectic Monday by bringing back an old favorite of mine.

I used to love Make It Yourself Monday posts because ... well... I like making things.  Usually I only choose to make something myself if it adds value or saves us money, so I feel like I'm doing something worth my time.  And honestly, when I was posting Make It Yourself Monday content every week, it really challenged me to be creative and industrious so I would have something to post for you guys. 

Today I'm bringing back good old-fashioned laundry soap.  (I don't really know if it's old-fashioned.. I didn't really do my research on this, but it sounded good, and I'm pretty sure making your own laundry soap is more old fashioned than buying Tide on aisle 10, so I'm just going with it.)

Why I Love this Laundry Soap

- It makes a lot, so it saves us from running out, or having to pick up a gallon of detergent once a month.

- It gets clothes clean.  My Mom made this soap for years when she washed my Dad's uniforms, which would always have grease and dirt - and this laundry soap performed well. The Fels Naptha bar is often used as a "stain stick".

- The fragrance is not irritating.  We have a lot of sensitivities to fragrances (it affects our sinuses and skin), and while the bar itself has a strong fragrance, when diluted into this 5-gallon mixture, it just smells clean.  Clothes never come out smelling perfumed.

- It saves us so.much.money.  The detergent we have used for years is about $11 per gallon, while this laundry soap cost me under $3 for 5 gallons!  That's a savings of about $10.40 per gallon!  

I used to make this laundry soap YEARS ago, and there's probably a decade-old post about it on here.  But I had stopped making it because every store around here stopped selling washing soda AND the Fels Naptha bar soap, and buying it online was actually a lot more expensive. 

But things have come 'round again, and here we are.

This one is so, so easy.  Here we go:

You Will Need:

1 cup washing soda

1 cup borax

1 bar Fels Naptha soap

water

5 gallon bucket with lid

a long-handled spoon 

Let's Make Laundry Soap:

Start by grating your bar of soap, and then adding it to a pot of boiling water. 

Stir until dissolved and turn off the stovetop.

Fill your 5-gallon bucket about halfway with hot water, and add the melted soap mixture to the bucket and stir.

Add the 1 c. borax and 1 c. washing soda, then fill the bucket the rest of the way with hot water, leaving room to stir.

Cover and let sit for 24 hours, and the solution will gel.

I made this simple label and used clear packing tape to put it on my bucket.  You can make one of these yourself, but if you leave me a comment and your email address, I'll send you the pdf of this one so you can print it out and we can having matching laundry soap buckets. (smile)

I hope you guys try this one - let me know if you do... or let me know if you have a different laundry soap recipe that you like.  I would love to hear about it!

Happy Monday, guys!