Laundry soap

I have been making my laundry soap for years now.  I began making everything from dish soap to laundry soap and took every oz of commercial soap out of my home. To avoid chemicals, dyes and perfumes along with anything petroleum based.. I make everything I can.  In fact, I have not used traditional soap in years.  I began using castile soaps for everything.  If not castile, then soap nuts.... more on that some other time.

Short version:
POWDER DETERGENT
2 cups baking soda
2 cups washing soda
1 bar grated soap
[double as many times as you want]
Leave a powder in a sealed container.

If a liquid is desired [liquid does do a bit better job of cleaning]
Grate bar into bowl, stir into 1 gallon of hot HOT water and stir until melted.
In a separate bucket, mix hot tap water with the B. Soda and the W. Soda until dissolved.
mix all together and be prepared for severe thickness.  If you have an emulsion blender- no problem, but if you don't then just give your final container a good shake each time before using if settling occurs.
1/8cup to 1/4 cup on average- depending on your washer and clothing soil... up to 1/2 cup detergent.

Detailed info:

My laundry detergent search kept hitting wall after wall when the one ingredient "Borax"  was involved.
If you have done your homework, you will know why you should never touch the stuff.  There are several reasons why it is banned in so many places.  Being used to kill rodents to interrupting the reproductive organs permanently in children under 9 and going further to poison babies in utero by disfiguring them through their mothers skin when she just touches it- etc...

I finally realized washing soda and baking soda, while only different by tiny amounts, were in fact different enough to really work together.  They are one in the same since you can make one from the other.


The difference between the two is a baking sheet, 400* and about 30-40 minutes.
Want to know the science details?
Washing soda, carbon dioxide and steam.  That is what is sodium bicarbonate after the heat:
NaHCO3 toNa2HCO3- lets be clear- I can't even write this down right in proper form.
it is a breakdown from (1sodium, 1 hydrogen, 1 carbon, 3 oxygen molecules) to (2 sodium, 1 carbon, 3 oxygen molecules)- or baking soda to washing soda.

The local farm feed store sells bags of sodium bicarbonate... 50# for $14+change.  Or I can go get it at Walmart- 12# for $8-$10.  I will say that the "feed grade" version is much more coarse- so if you plan to use it like I do for the face or delicate surfaces...buy the Arm&Hammer version....everything else- why not go with the farm feed store???

Here is my recipe in general:

2 cups washing soda 
2 cups baking soda
1 bar soap finely shredded
(castile soap- I add one more per 4-5 because the size is so much smaller)


I say "general" because each of the 4 soaps I use do something different
and from time to time I change volume.

For a general detergent I shred Zote soap.  It consists of nothing that rates above a 1 from the EWG website.  Not only that but it has a great blueing agent.  Every white you see is actually a shade of blue.  adjust the blue- you wind up with a brighter everything.  Whites obviously- but colors too.
It is made with tallow- this makes it "grate" in little curls because of the fat.  I allow this to be exposed to the air for a few days before adding the rest of the ingredients so it breaks apart for an easier dissolve.  There is no difference other than the color of the pink vs blue (white) Zote soap.  The reason they are made is because the difference between the southern and northern sections of Mexico tend to prefer a color vs no color.  Its a marketing thing.
So- in general I have to believe it has tallow saturated with GMO.  I feel torn over this because I don't support ANY GMO producing agent.  However- this was discovered after a lot of digging.  Sadly this does not fall under the FDA's guidelines of "if GMO so and so is not used in the FINAL stages of *anything* then it doesn't have to be announced".

I hate politics and lawyer talk. So I call bull $h!t for those of us having to fight a battle the government is trying so hard to keep in whispers.

For my detergent that I use for myself, the children and delicate fabric-aka my favorite and most trusted- I use castile soap- whether it be Dr. Bronner's or Kirks.  I order Dr. Bronners and am lucky enough that my little, tiny, non-existent town has a gas station that sells Kirks for $1.32... it was $1.19 until I bought the whole stock and it went up right away.  Still cheaper than anywhere online that I can find!
Either castile will shred at a super fine point.  It can be made into a dust to match the consistency of the baking soda and the washing soda.

Last- which is rare- I make 5 bars worth of Fels-Naptha.  If you have never heard of it, you are missing out- however- it is not what I would consider healthy or safe.  It is the lesser of most evils out there.  Why would I use it if it is toxic?  Because it works that well.  I still refuse to use it on my clothing or the children's clothing, but it does the trick to get the engineers clothing clean of grease and nasty other things... that and it gets them really clean.  It also works on getting my homemade napkins super clean too.

If you look at the photo above, you will see a few variations of the Fels-Napths I use.  One has no specific ingredients and the other has several:

I do more laundry than the average house- I wear many costumes during the course of one day.  between the farm clothes, milking clothes, chore clothes, wood cutting, painting, Pj's, Mass suits, my every day jeans and two children who like to match me- I need different detergents for everything- this setup I just explained works well enough that I do this once every year to year and a half and I am done....not to mention I give away about 6 moths to a years worth to friends and family... and still wind up with over a years worth- well- enough said.

Cost?  I would estimate (since I go big)  I buy:

*50# baking soda which turns into both B.Soda and Washing soda= $15
* 9 bars of Zote soap.  Dollar General =~$13-ish
*6 bars Kirk's soap.  Gas station=$8-ish

About $45... for detergent that whitens like bleach, detergent that takes care of your delicate clothing and even baby clothes/ diapers- then a general detergent and a super oxy-clean type of detergent.  Not including the Fels-Naptha, These detergents are clean from petroleum, dye, synthetic nastiness and my enemy- perfume.

Now- I divide it all into separate huge zip-lock bags.  When I use the powder, I fill a mason jar and use an old Parmesan cheese lid to be able to disperse about 1/8c-1/4c per load.


Once all the powder is made and I want liquid- I take about 1 part powder to 4.5 parts HOT water and mix until melted.  Like I stated above- emulsion mixer is handy to make it so it can be put back into the spout kind of dispenser that requires no lifting.... still needs a shake after sitting for a while.


I wind up having over a years worth of soap AND I give away about a years worth for others to try.  If out of the above recipe- I am able to get a 4.5 gallon bucket of powder and just under 4 containers of liquid (which equates to 125 loads per bottle for top loader and 250 loads per bottle for he washers) X4!!!- you can probably estimate how long that would last you and most likely half or quarter my recipe.