Make your own laundry soap?!!
 

I was watching The Duggar's (the couple that has 18 children) and she said she makes her own laundry soap for about $2 and it does 180 loads!.. Feeling ambitious?.....

The Jim Bob & Michelle Duggar Family

She has some recipes too that she feeds her little army...

This site also makes the soap.....

Soaps Gone Buy - Where Soaps of yesterday are found Today!


I can't seem to find the exact ingredients for Fels Naptha soap.....:confused: ...... It said it kills fleas, hhmmmm ........

Maybe I'm an idiot, but what is "washing soda" and where do you buy it?

ok so we have two idiots here.. :confused: so far

Same here, never heard of it.

I didn't know what it was either but I read that Arm & Hammer makes it.....

"Washing soda is a highly alkaline chemical compound which can be used to remove stubborn stains from laundry. It also has numerous uses around the house. Washing soda should not be confused with washing powder, which is a powdered soap used as a detergent; it is also not the same thing as baking soda, although the two compounds are closely related.

The chemical formula for washing soda is Na2CO3, and it is also known as sodium carbonate. It is a salt of carbonic acid, a chemical which produces a wide range of salts collectively known as carbonates. One common source of washing soda is the ashes of plants; for this reason, it is sometimes called soda ash. Sodium carbonate can also be extracted from sodium chloride, also known as table salt.

In laundry, washing soda accomplishes several things. The high alkalinity of washing soda helps it act as a solvent to remove a range of stains, and unlike bleach, washing soda does not usually stain. It is also used in detergent mixtures to treat hard water; the washing soda binds to the minerals which make water hard, allowing detergent to foam properly so that clothing will come out clean, without any residue."


I found these recipes using washing soda on a "green" site......

Spray For Tough Grease - 1/2 tsp. washing soda ( sodium carbonate, soda ash or sal soda) 2 tbsp. distilled white vinegar, 1/2 tsp. liquid soap ( veg. oil based), 2c. hot water.
(You can add a few drops of essential oil too.) Put all this in a spray bottle.

Floor Disinfectant - Add 1/2c. borax into a bucket of hot water, dissolve the borax.
To cut grease on the floor - add 1/2c. washing soda ( soduim carbonate or sal soda) with 1 tbsp. liquid soap, 1/4 c. white vinegar and 1/2 bucket hot water- use gloves. Don't use on waxed floors.

I've done it and it works quite well.

At the moment, I am still hooked on soap nuts.

I think I've seen washing soda by Arm & Hammer at Wal-mart before.

OMG! ...You bought that sack of nuts?!! LOL!.....So they really work?

Have no idea what this is about :eek: lol

Been using them about 8 months.

interesting thread...what are soap nuts..?

It is a sack of special soap nuts that cleans your laundry......This is thread on them...

http://www.yorkietalk.com/forums/off...ttle-sack.html

If God wanted me to make my own laundry soap....he would NOT have invented Tide!!!:p

I love stuff like this! I like to pretend I'm all handy and stuff. Mayhaps I'll get brave and see if I can find the stuff to make it in the German store. My poor husband just sort of deals with my experiments and occasionally hides his dinner plate when I feed him questionable food. :rolleyes: I must say tha soap nuts sounds alittle funny though. but then again I am easily amused:);)

I think it's a fantastic and chemicle free way to save a great deal of money and I"m all for it. I have already bought the Fels-Naptha soap bar and the Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda Detergent booster, but now I need the Borax, which the commissary didn't have yesterday, so I'll go to Albertsons.

Yorkiedaze--Do they sell the washing soda at the commissary?

Maybe I'll see if I can do this when go shopping next week. I'd love to try, but am really sketchy about doing it with German products since...I don't read German so well and would hate to have some horrid chemical reaction.

I've made my own laundry soap for about a year now. I love it as it cleans great!!! I is a little "slimy" but works the best. Just make sure to add the "gel" to the water first....swish around a bit...then add the clothes. If you add it on top of the clothes, you can make streaks in dark clothing.

I get my borax at Wal-mart, my Fels Naptha and the washing soda at our Pick N' Save store.

Now off to check out the soap nuts......

I don't know about other commissary's but they sell it here at Vandenberg AFB. Since you have either an FPO or APO address, have someone you know here in the states mail you what you need to make it.

I'm going to make the powdered type, not the liquid. I like the idea of only having to add a tablespoon or two to a load of clothes. I'm even going to do the vinegar rinse.

If I can find the Fels Naptha I am going to make up a batch. I have been using a vinegar rinse for a long time. In fact, most of the time I put it in both the liquid bleach dispenser AND in the softner dispenser. Clothes come out smelling -- well a bit like vinegar BUT toss them into the dryer with a dryer sheet and they smell fresh and CLEAN!

I am going o buy some soap nuts too and do a product comparison. I wish someone else would do the same so we could have a couple of REAL CLEAN LAUNDRY NUTS and we could compare noes.

I hope it works better than some (...all) of those recipes sound.

Kyle you'd be surprised to know what is put in "real soap" that you buy in the stores.

A long time ago I used to make old fashioned lye soap. Surprisingly enough it works quite well, especially on hard wood floors :)

I also make my own bar soap.

The laundry soap/gel, makes a wonderful floor cleaner too. I also use it for cleaning the toilet.

I think I'll order the soap nuts too so I can compare them to my other soap.

I've used vinegar for years as a fabric softener, it is so much better than the other store bought kind. My towels are much more obsorbant, I know that is spelled wrong....

For those of you who are looking for Fels Naptha - Kroger has it. I paid $1.29 per bar -- and to think I was going to pay big bucks plus shipping from an ebayer.

Well I made a double batch of the powdered laundry soap and washed clothes today with it. The clothes are clean, soft and even smell clean. I think it's a keeper, and just look at the money I'm going to save. My girls will love getting more new things. :D Oh, and yes, I did the vinegar rinse. I like that idea anyway since vinegar kills germs, staph, mold, mildew and all just the same as bleach. The only thing that smelled a tiny bit of vinegar were the towels, but I don't mind that since I'm not wearing them hehe!! I don't use dryer sheets in the towels because it make the towels almost impossible to absorb water when drying off. Next time I'll just use a little less vinegar.

Donna, glad to see an update!...Did you figure out your final cost?.... Did you add any essential oils to the soap?.....

How do you do the vinegar rinse?

I have been making my own laundry soap for a couple of years. I love it. Making it is also fun.

I am going to try it too:)...
although I would rather have the soap already shaved...lol


where do you get essential oils?