[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Washday: Making my own laundry soap ****Very Picture Heavy**** Updated. (Page 1 of 4)
Posted: 7/14/2009 7:39:44 PM EDT
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Followed the recipe from here:
http://www.duggarfamily.com/recipes.html TIPS FOR LAUNDRY SOAP: We use Fels-Naptha bar soap in the homemade soap recipes, but you can use Ivory, Sunlight, Kirk's Hardwater Castile or Zote bars. Don't use heavily perfumed soaps. We buy Fels-Naptha by the case from our local grocer or online. Washing Soda and Borax can normally be found on the laundry or cleaning aisle. Recipe cost approx. $2.
Homemade Liquid Laundry Soap- Front or top load machine- best value 4 Cups hot tap water 1 Fels-Naptha soap bar 1 Cup Washing Soda ½ Cup Borax - Grate bar of soap and add to saucepan with water. Stir continually over medium-low heat until soap dissolves and is melted. -Fill a 5 gallon bucket half full of hot tap water. Add melted soap, washing soda and Borax. Stir well until all powder is dissolved. Fill bucket to top with more hot water. Stir, cover and let sit overnight to thicken. -Stir and fill a used, clean, laundry soap dispenser half full with soap and then fill rest of way with water. Shake before each use. (will gel) -Optional: You can add 10-15 drops of essential oil per 2 gallons. Add once soap has cooled. Ideas: lavender, rosemary, tea tree oil. -Yield: Liquid soap recipe makes 10 gallons. -Top Load Machine- 5/8 Cup per load (Approx. 180 loads) -Front Load Machines- ¼ Cup per load (Approx. 640 loads) Powdered Laundry Detergent- Top load machine 1 Fels-Naptha soap bar 1 Cup Washing Soda ½ Cup Borax -Grate soap or break into pieces and process in a food processor until powdered. Mix all ingredients. For light load, use 1 Tablespoon. For heavy or heavily soiled load, use 2 Tablespoons. Yields: 3 Cups detergent. (Approx. 40 loads) 
^The basic supplies 
^ Grating the Fels-Naptha soap 
^Oh god my arm 
While this is going on, heat 4 cups of water in a large pot over medium/low heat. We're getting it hot, not boiling 
^Approx 7 years later (I need a better grater or child labor) 
^Once your soap is grated, add soap to your hot water. Just toss it all in there, 
^ While that's heating fill a 5 gallon bucket half way (no need to be precise) with hot water from the tap. 
^ Keep stirring 
^ Once the soap is melted... 
^ Tump the soap into your bucket of hot water. 
^ Measure out one cup of Arm and Hammer Washing Soda and add it to your bucket 
^ Measure out a half cup of Borax and add it to your bucket. 
^ Stir till everything's dissolved 
^ Once everything's dissolved, fill your bucket with hot water. 
^ Once filled, add your lid and let it sit overnight. I'm using a pickle bucket and lid here that I got for free from a local restaurant. Ask around, you can find these everywhere for free. 
^ Jugs ready for filling –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Let sit overnight, then fill your jugs half way with soap mixture, then dilute with equal parts of water and shake. Shake detergent before each use. Recipe makes 10 gallons (anyone in STL need some soap? 
Total cost of this project? $2.25-$2.75 for 10 gallons which will be 180 loads of detergent. Once you've used half a large jug, it's paid for itself. Hope you readers who stuck to the end enjoyed :) Pictures and assistance by our new member Taichou. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Updated on 7/31/2009 I've had a few PM's asking to see the final product and such, so here's a fun addon: 
But how do you get the soap into the empty soap containers without making a huge mess? Easy. Here's what you need. 1. Your bucket of soap 2. A jug of some sort. A milk jug works, water jug, you name it. 3. Funnel 4. Don't be Michael J. Fox. 
What I've done here is used a pocket knife to remove the bottom 1/4th of a water jug. You can buy these nearly everywhere and they work great as they stack up to 5 high without crushing. But I digress. 
Most liquid soap jugs have a particular spout on them that fits well inside the mouth of a milk/water jug. You'll have some spillage, but most soap jugs have a drain which flows back into the bottle, making this perfect. 
Now, ladle your soap into your jug. Fill it half way. 
Once you've filled your jug half way, dilute with a 1:1 water solution. 
Rinse, wash and repeat until you've filled your jugs. 
Toss a lid back on your 5 gallon jug if you have extra and save it until you need it. I filled 4 bottles of soap, which would've likely cost more than $20 in the store for no more than $2.00. Kinda shiny. That's the end of the writeup guys, hope you enjoyed the read. |
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I could have just used the subscribe button to tag this thread. But, I wanted to show my support and gratitude for the OPs efforts in bringing this valuable information. So, I made a post instead.
Thank you sir. I have a question. Could the FELS NAPTHA bar, for the next batch of soap, be left in a container of water and allowed to dissolve while you are using up the bucket of detergent? |
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nice write up, but its been done and was on page 1 yesterday.
http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=10&f=17&t=621990 |
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Quoted:
Plus: What are the benefits of doing it this way? Is there a monetary savings? Is it more environmentally friendly? PS: I will be doing it for fun but it would be better of it had an added bonus. Quoted:
Total cost of this project? $2.25-$2.75 for 10 gallons which will be 180 loads of detergent. Once you've used half a large jug, it's paid for itself. 
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Quoted: Quoted: Plus: What are the benefits of doing it this way? Is there a monetary savings? Is it more environmentally friendly? PS: I will be doing it for fun but it would be better of it had an added bonus. Quoted: Total cost of this project? $2.25-$2.75 for 10 gallons which will be 180 loads of detergent. Once you've used half a large jug, it's paid for itself. That's just the added bonus I was looking for.  |
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Quoted:
nice post...I am in STL myself...where you been finding the Fels local?....i have one bar left in my storage stuff for unknown reasons..... Send me an email, I've 5 gallons of soap for you if you want it 
You can find all the ingredients at Schnucks in the laundry isle. |
| lol...i'll look it over at schnucks....didnt recall seeing the Fels there the washing soda i have bought there before, it makes an excellent caustic neutralizer when doing an 18th century rust blue on Flintlocks.....I'll hit the one on Gravois on the way home tonite....might have to have ya out to the club as a thanks.... |
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Yet another thread that I'm going to forward to my wife. A friend of ours does this, but my wife has been reluctant to try it.
Good write-up and pics. sgt_seti ETA: I'm thinking that I'm lazy, so a food processor to grate the soap and drill-powered paint stirrer to mix in the bucket would be in order. |
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Quoted:
lol...i'll look it over at schnucks....didnt recall seeing the Fels there the washing soda i have bought there before, it makes an excellent caustic neutralizer when doing an 18th century rust blue on Flintlocks.....I'll hit the one on Gravois on the way home tonite....might have to have ya out to the club as a thanks.... You live right by me then. I got my ingredients at the one off of Forest Park, but have seen them at the Loughborough(sp) one. To answer the questions above, I'm not an expert but I believe the shelf life is well into a year +. I was given a bottle of this recipe and it took me about 9 months to get to use it. Clothes came out just as clean, smelling amazing and the detergent was liquid after one or two hearty shakes of the bottle. |
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Quoted:
Is it shelf stable, will the ingredients separate and need to be shaken up or stirred before use. Even if you do it in half batches, 5 gallons would last me a long time. My wife and I made this recipe earlier this year in January. You are supposed to let it sit overnight...well...I let it sit ~2 weeks before using, since I still had some other (store bought) detergent to finish. When we opened the top on the 5-gallon bucket it looked like yogurt, complete with the gel in the middle and the liquidy part around and on top of the gel. We stirred it for a bit, and even put our hands in it squishing all the chunky parts. We mixed it thoroughly, and since then it hasn't separated, although it does tend to congeal a bit between uses (we transfer it from the 5-gallon bucket to a liquid laundry container like the OP for ease of use). When it comes time to get some more from the bucket we get out a ladle and stir the stuff in the bucket, then scoop it into the smaller laundry container and mix with water, as per the directions. Then we put the top back on the bucket and it sits there until needed again...usually ~a week later, or less depending on the amount of laundry we're doing. We've used this same 5-gallon batch since January of this year and we still have 1 gallon to go. No change in smell or anything and it still seems to do a great job of cleaning. |
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Great topic, I love this kind of stuff.
I went to the Duggar site and something seems strange. The liquid detergent recipe and the powdered detergent recipe both use the same amount of ingredients, but the liquid recipe claims a minimum of 180 loads while the powdered recipe claims only 40 loads. Why the huge difference? |
| I know that there have been a few comments that the smell is clean, but is there a predominant scent/smell to it? Also do you know if there is anything that could be readily added to the mix to add in a favorite scent? Or would the best bet be to get a scented fabric softener? |
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1: The liquid version is quite diluted, whereas it would appear that the solid version is perhaps a bit stronger.
2: Yes you can add "essential oils" –– 10-15 drops per two gallons, according to the website (this is an instance where you could have answered your own question by clicking the provided link in the first post) 3: This recipe makes essentially zero suds when used in a top loading washing machine so it should be just fine for front loading machines. 4: The smell of the soap itself isn't too strong, but there is definitely a smell. 99% of the time when I take clothes out of the washer they don't have any scent at all, other times there is just barely a slight hint of a smell. |
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Quoted:
I wonder how well this would work in one of the new front loader washers that require low suds soap. It works fine I actually had some I made from the other post. Wife finally got to use it. Loves it. We were out of the homemade, but had nearly 20 gallons of the store bought stuff. She made me make another batch because she thought it did better than the store stuff-good enough for me and that really says it all If you let it set overnight, then hit it with a wisk, it will be smooth and pretty much stays that way. I use a gas can (clean) to store it, the spout makes it easy to pour. Add essential oil if you want smell, I like the just "clean" smell-no perfume at all I also have kids and its does not give rashes or anything like that. Really its one of the best things I've used Vinegar for the fabric softer win. |
| You can do this as a dry soap also, you just need to grate it fine like Parmesan cheese. Also, if you have sensitive skin and find Fels and Borax too much, you can use Castile soap and washing soda, just grate it very fine and mix it 50/50 with washing soda. It only takes a tablespoon or so for a whole load. Use white vinegar as a fabric softener too. |
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Vinegar also has other uses in laundry. It prevents bright colors from fading of bleeding. About 9-10 years ago I purchased a BRIGHT RED 6 food lovesac. Since they came from SLC we had them before they got trendy then went under. Many people had problems with them bleeding onto light colored carpet... 95% of all homes. The fix was to wash it in a vinegar solution in the laundry machine. Also works great for board shorts when I was diving.
With the OPs permission... I will create a pdf and host it for our members survival database on our PCs. again, only if he agrees to the usage. Also if anyone wants any tid bits of info added let me know... if he agrees. |
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Quoted:
Vinegar also has other uses in laundry. It prevents bright colors from fading of bleeding. About 9-10 years ago I purchased a BRIGHT RED 6 food lovesac. Since they came from SLC we had them before they got trendy then went under. Many people had problems with them bleeding onto light colored carpet... 95% of all homes. The fix was to wash it in a vinegar solution in the laundry machine. Also works great for board shorts when I was diving. With the OPs permission... I will create a pdf and host it for our members survival database on our PCs. again, only if he agrees to the usage. Also if anyone wants any tid bits of info added let me know... if he agrees. Happy to give you permission. The idea wasn't mine, I just took a few photos 
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Uploaded. I added a disclaimer just incase.
CLICK ME for pdf File size is 2.7M. |
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I just used a bit of the batch OP made... (SheeDevil = Taichou for reference) Works like a dream!!
As far as a smell is concerned, there really isn't much of one. The smell you get from the Fels bar is MUCH stronger than what you actually end up with. How to describe the smell though...take any generic bar of soap and you get that "clean" smell....that's pretty much what this smells like. There isn't too much of a residual smell after washing, especially if you use dryer sheets that are scented, as I do. All in all, I give this a success....now if the damn strawberry jam we made would just set, it will be a 100% success :P Blackberry and raspberry turned out great! (Nice work on the PDF ^.^) |
| Just want to BTT this this is great been using this soap for the past few months its the only soap that will get the smell of dog piss off are towels I have a Mastiff and his urine smell is really strong most of the time we have to wash the items twice sometimes more buy with this stuff once will do. We did not place and fragrance in are first batch and still everything has a clean sent to it! I'm making 10 Gals of it for my mother as she pays get this $20 for 1lbs of this stuff dry!! I'm going to make some for my brother and my neice who is only a year old but I'm going to fragrance hers with a baby powder sent. |
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My wife has been using this recipe for the past two years. We mix all the ingredients in the pot and heat it up to a simmer before transfering it to the bucket. She also does the white vinegar thing. No issues with this mix. Clothes are clean. I make a scent-free variety for my hunting clothes. |