I made my own laundry detergent today. The photo in yesterday’s blog showed Ivory soap. I decided I would use Zote soap instead. If you are not familiar with Zote, it is a laundry soap found in the grocery store on the laundry aisle. It’s pink and soft and smells wonderful!
The recipe for the homemade laundry detergent calls for 2 cups of grated soap, which is approximately 1/3 of one bar of Zote. Zote is a really soft soap, so easily cut into thirds and grated by hand.
First, I used my trusty old (and I do mean old) grater. I was not happy with how large the pieces were, so I changed to another grater that I use for hard cheese.
Perfect! It took under 5 minutes to grate 2 cups by hand.
After the Zote soap was ready, I put it in a bowl with 1 cup of Borax and 1 cup of Arm & Hammer washing soda.
That’s it… Now all I have to do is stir.
According to another blog that I read, you keep stirring and the soap will dry further with the other two ingredients and break down. Well, I am an impatient sort and all that stirring was making me tired, so I took my bowl and my blender stick to the garage and further broke down the soap pieces.
So…here’s my first batch of homemade laundry detergent. I only need 2 tablespoons of this mixture for one load of laundry. I found a small scoop in my junk drawer. The little scoop in the photo contains 2 tablespoons of detergent. Perfect!
Just as soon as I finished making my detergent, I headed to the laundry room to try it out. I washed a load of whites first. I was thrilled with how clean everything came out. Next, I washed a load of blacks to see if any white remained in the black fabric. Nope! Another perfectly clean load of laundry. I am over the moon with this project.
But…If you know me, you know that I will do it someone else’s way once, then the next time will be my way. Also, if you know me, you know that I am all about easy… When I worked, I supervised a lot of people. I never turned new duties over to my staff until I found the best and easiest way to do a task. I practice the same way in my home. So, tomorrow I plan to experiment a little. This time, I will be experimenting in my garage because I’m going to use my Cuisinart to both shred my soap and blend. There might be a lot of soap floating around in the air….
As soon as I find the easiest, fastest way to make the detergent, I will share in another blog.
This is exciting! How easy?
ReplyDeleteI believe you may have convinced me to try this. Monday is grocery day and I will pick up the stuff and then Tuesday (Tasty Tuesday)I'll give my laundry a good test.
Thanks for sharing all of this. Fun, fun, fun.
I think you will be pleased. I wish I knew this years ago. I am having fun with this.
DeleteIs the font any better? I can't seem to enlarge it, so I went to a new font. I couldn't read the old font either and had tried on at least 2 other occasions to change the font pt. I hope it is better for you.
I can't wait to try it, it will work with any bar soap right?
ReplyDeleteWhen I googled it a few days ago, I read a lot of blogs. One of them said any kind of soap, but most said either Zote or Fels Naptha. Zote is generally around a dollar. I did pay $1.29 for my bar yesterday just because I didn't want to leave the neighborhood just for a bar of soap. I did wonder if Ivory still produces the soap flakes. That would be the easiest. I plan to try Ivory and maybe one of the deodorant soaps that my husband didn't like. I have Coast and Lever 2000 that he didn't like. I will be experimenting, although I don't know why because I am very pleased with the result today.
DeleteCan't wait!!! I generally have NO success in making something myself. I once took a collection of little soap bar pieces we generally will toss - and tried to melt them down on the stove into one, new bar. Bad idea. I am going to give your final version a try, much to the dismay of my spouse no doubt. She is a non-believer in make it yourself anything.
DeleteLOL...I did the same thing with a collection of small soap leftovers. It was an extremely bad idea. But, you can drop them in a small amount of water to produce a liquid hand soap.
DeleteI have faith that you can measure and mix 3 ingredients. You can do it!!! (Just a little encouragement to get you started...)
Love that you're doing all the work and sharing your results. I'm the kind of shopper that waits, for the folks in front of me, to figure out which package of toilet paper is the better deal, then I swoop in.
ReplyDeleteLOL... I understand. Before I retired, I was often administrator for new benefits - like back in the day when direct deposit of pay first came along. I was in a position to hear all the problems. I always let all kinks get worked out before jumping on the bandwagon... Was it a sin to use our employees as guinea pigs?
DeleteThanks for keeping us up to date. I am very impressed with how your laundry has come out so far. Please keep us posted about how your project continues to work out.
ReplyDeleteI was going to make more with the food processor today, but I was to busy washing everything I could lay my hands on...LOL. I am just so pleased. Now I have washed all our clothes, linens and towels. Tomorrow, I think I will wash the bathroom rug. Then I might pull some old clothes out of the closet in the back room, wash them, then bag them for the church thrift shop. I need to get rid of them anyway and I'm having so much fun with my laundry. HA!
DeleteI love it Darlene! The fewer additives we have in all of our daily processes, the more likely we are to invite healthier ways of living. I like the soap, and have NO clue where to find the Zote, but I am going to look!
ReplyDeleteI don't know if you have these stores where you live, but I have found Zote in Save-A-Lot and Dollar General. I'm told that Walmart sells it. IDK because I rarely go to Walmart. I didn't look when I was in Publix because I already bought a bar in Save-A-Lot. Look in the laundry aisle at the grocery store. It was with regular bath soap at Dollar General. I guess they didn't know it is laundry soap. LOL I am sure you will find it somewhere. The other laundry soap is Fels Naptha, also found where laundry products are. It is a good soap too, but I like the smell of Zote better. My Mom always had a bar of Fels Naptha by the washer, as do I. It is a brown soap and I use it when I need to scrub a spot before throwing something in the wash. It is a no nonsense soap....
DeleteOkay well I will hit the store first thing in the morning to get these ingredients and try this for myself. I don't have a cuisinart but I have a blender...and I have a small cup sized gizmo gadget I make salsa with and it will make anything fine and powdery. OH I'M excited :)
ReplyDeleteI can hardly wait to hear how you like it!
DeleteI just got a similar recipe from a friend - the ingredients are on my shopping list - can't wait to do this and end the ridiculous expenses associated with laundry! Take that TIDE!
ReplyDeleteLOL... Tide stays at the top of my hit list too... I should not admit this, but I resorted to cheaper detergent quite a while back. I washed all of my laundry in the past 2 days. I came to the conclusion that I had been doing a disservice to our clothing. I had some pajama bottoms that were beginning to look dingy. When I washed them in the new homemade detergent, the colors came out so nice and bright. That is when I realized that my laundry had been a bit grimy. Ugh! My whites are brighter. I ran out of laundry to wash, so today, I have 2 throw rugs in the washer. I can hardly wait to see how they come out. I am sooooo hooked on making my own detergent!
ReplyDeleteOh...one more thing. I stopped stressing that the little pink pieces don't completely mix in with the white powders. I just stir it up and take a scoop. It's working great!
i just made my own homemade laundry detergent two weeks ago (liquid) and i absolutely LOVE IT! i also love saving the money too. :)
ReplyDeleteI owe it all to you. You mentioned your detergent in your blog, so I googled. As you can see, I am quite thrilled. So.....Thanks! :-)
DeleteI can't wait to try it.Great pictures too.
ReplyDeleteAny further advances on the laundry soap or was this the final product?
ReplyDeleteIt is the final product and I am VERY happy with it. Since then, I found a recipe for homemade "Shout it out" product that does a really good job. I'm a happy gal! :-)
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