Homemade Laundry Soap for the Math Challenged

I decided it was a good time to finally make that laundry soap.  So that is a grater and this is soap!

It looks good enough to eat.  Next I put it over medium heat to melt.

When it was melted I added the half cup of borax and washing soda.

I gave it a good stir and poured it into a big kettle and added another 8 quarts of hot tap water and let it cool.  Now I'm ready to wash!

My bucket needed to be about half a gallon bigger to hold it all, but I like having the bucket there on the dryer where all sorts of homeless items end up.  Let's peek inside.

Its kind of globby and colorless.  Definitely not as interesting as store bought with the bright color and perfume.  But this is much cheaper and much nicer to the environment.  In fact, I bought two big boxes of borax (76 oz each) and a box of washing soda (55 oz) for a bit less than ten dollars.  A rough estimate of cost using $3.50 per box (they were roughly the same price but a little less than $3.50 each) winds up being :
(4/76)*$3.50 = 0.1842  or 18 cents for the borax
(4/55)*$3.50 = 0.2545 or 25 cents for the washing soda
1 bar of ivory soap @ 3/$1.00 = 0.333 or 33 cents

Grand total of  0.76 or 76 cents to make around 2.5 gallons.  AMAZING.  Even if you throw in a dollar or two for water and electricity it is still very cheap.  I just priced the cheapest name brand detergent on sale at Walmart for $10.97 (ALL) for 150 oz. and the other sale was name brand GAIN for $14.97 for 150 oz.  with a claim it will clean 96 loads (folks that is like a shot glass full per load do you believe that?)  My batch will make 80 loads using a half cup per load and I will use 4oz per load for the store bought to compare and ignore sales tax as well.

Cost Comparison

Homemade costs $0.0024 per ounce.  Not even a penny.    Let's assume we do a load of clothes a day at 4oz a load.  Over a month you would need 120 ounces to do 30 loads.

ALL                          30*0.073*4= $8.78
GAIN                        30*0.0998*4= $11.98
HOMEMADE          30*0.0024*4= $0.29

Savings of $10.09 for a month if you only do one load per day.  I averaged the leading brand price to get that number (used $10.38 for the monthly ALL/GAIN cost).  If you average more like 3 loads a day then the savings of course triples to $30.27 per month.  Over a year that becomes $363.24.  And this is only relevant if you are a WALMART shopper.  If you are a more responsible/eco friendly consumer and buy from a locally owned business those savings skyrocket.  I would have loved to have bought the ingredients from a locally owned business but they didn't carry them.  Well, not the borax and washing soda. I had the bars on hand.

One last thought.  If you want to scent your laundry soap I just add a drop of essential oil to the soap before I drop it in.  Lavendar, tea tree whatever scent you like.  If you want to use a natural fabric softener try vinegar.

After several loads of wash I am very satisfied with the result and like having a product I know will be consistent to use, easy on the environment and serve more than one purpose as it can be used for general cleaning as well.

The recipe is generic and can be adjusted if you want thicker or thinner soap and there are many variations to be found on the internet if you look.  Try one and adjust it to suit your needs.

Lastly,  the inspiration for this activity comes from Rhonda.  I do not ever want to steal her thunder so all the credit needs to go to her blog Down To Earth.  Thank you Rhonda, I no longer feel like a freak going about my homespun tasks while the world flies past me at the speed of light!