I had heard positive reviews of homemade laundry soap. At first I was skeptical –has the coupon clipping and penny-pinching really come to this? But then, they said it does a wonderful job of laundering clothes…that it cleans very well and yet is gentle on the material. I thought maybe one day I would try it…as an adventure if for nothing else! After all, I still have lots of laundry soap from “stocking up” before we were married! (You can ask my Mom Murdock about that!!!)
Then Marcia, a good friend, who with her husband had just invested in a frontloader washer, mentioned something one day. It was something to the fact of, “I just bought all the stuff to make homemade laundry soap, and now our washing machine requires only High Efficiency laundry soap. I wanted to try it to save money, and now I cannot use it, and I wasted the money buying the supplies.” I’LL BUY IT FROM YOU!” I said. Here was my chance to try out the endeavor, and I wouldn’t have to run around to stores looking for Borax and other supplies either!
So, for twelve dollars, I had probably enough to make eight or ten batches of the soap, and each batch makes enough for around forty loads. If you cannot say anything else about homemade laundry soap, you can say, IT IS CHEAP.
Marcia and I got together and made it at my house. It was a piece of cake to make…SO EASY! So you can say that in its favor too.
As for how it washes, how will we know, except to test it out on a stain or use it and over time see how it seems to work? Well, I decided to test it out on a stain as I had seen that someone else had done. I squirted Mustard on two old socks and soaked one in homemade soap, and the other in Dynamo laundry soap. Well, are you waiting for me to give you a rave review on the homemade stuff? I can’t. THe Dynamo did better. It is true. Maybe I should try a different way next time, or maybe it is because of our water here…it is very hard, I think. But it wasn’t anything special. I would be willing to try a different recipe later, and I will definitely use up what I have, but I cannot rave about it. Have you had a different experience? Can you tell me why mine didn’t do wonderfully as it seems to have done for others? I would like your opinion, especially if you have made homemade laundry soap before yourself!
Hey Andrea,
To bad the stain didn’t come out. Maybe if you try making just dried ingredients it would work better. I guess I’m not exactly the voice of experience since I helped you make this one. There are so many recipes online though, I’m sure you’ll find one that works excellent!! 😀
Nice red hospital feet, Marcia! 🙂 As I haven’t made this before, I cannot comment.
You are really finally out of laundry soap?! I guess it is cheap–but I would never think to make my own laundry soap–too spoiled, I guess:)
Nooooo…not out yet. I just did it for the adventure and experience. I had heard good things about it and wanted to try it! It was fun and easy!
I know Granny Clampett makes really good soap. Maybe she has a recipe somewhere in cyberspace for detergent.
Great idea! Will have to look into that. Why didn’t I think of her?
Hello! I saw the laundry soap post and thought, “Oh great!” because I use it, love it, and even have a front loader. Feel sorry for Marcia because we use homemade laundry soap in it all the time and it works great! We checked into the whole “High Efficiency” thing and found that it just means a low sudsing soap. The homemade soap is perfect for it! At least you made some money… 🙂 I will say that the key to great homemade laundry soap is Fels-Naptha soap. You CAN use any low perfume soap, but normal bar soap is not made to be used for stain removal….. Fels-Naptha is a great stain remover and the smell is divine on your clothes. Anyways, hope you find something that works for you!
Hi Deena! It is good to hear from you. And thank you for the tip. I certainly want to try it. I wonder if somehow I can re-do the stuff I already have, and just add that kind of soap –? Anyway, I am glad to know this might be where I went wrong, because I really wanted this to work!