Sunday, April 8, 2012

How to make your own laundry soap!

When this formula for making laundry detergent was shown to me by my in-laws I have to admit that I was skeptical. "Think of how much money we can save!" My wife exclaimed. As enticing as the money savings sounded I still questioned the efficacy of this soap. So I told my wife that we'll wait a little while and see how her sister ends up liking it. In the meantime we went on using the same name brand laundry soap we had been using. In fact we probably spent another $100 or more on laundry soap until I finally decided to give the stuff a try.



I found the process of making the soap very easy, that the soap cleans the laundry very well, that it's actually a hypoallergenic laundry soap, and for less than a half hour of my time I'm saving hundreds of dollars a year on laundry detergent a year.

Someone once said that he does his best thinking at church – ahem. Anyway, on my way to church this morning I happened to think about the cost savings on this and I realized I erred in my math in the video. $20 is NOT the cost per year. $20 is the cost of the initial investment of one box of borax, one box of washing soda and one bar of Fels Naptha soap. However, the boxes of Borax and soda go a long long way and probably make a couple hundred gallons of laundry detergent with the additional cost of a bar of the Fels for every 10 gallons.

In short it costs less than $5.00 per 10 gallons of detergent. Depending on how you measure it out per load (1/4 cup per load or 1/2 cup per load) if you average out the use to .375 cups per load, you will get over 400 washes out of those ten gallons. In short buy making your own soap you will save 17 cents per load over the name brand that I was using.

Here’s another way to look at the cost savings. 1.32 gallons of the brand name I was buying at Sam’s Club cost about $19-20, but 1.32 gallons of this homemade soap costs me $0.66 and less than a half hour to make 10 gallons of the stuff. I’m saving $19 per gallon, and I with my large family I’m saving over $300 a year. Everyone will also realize the same savings – but it may take more or less time depending on your laundry demands.

There are ways to add a custom scent to this laundry soap. For instance, some people may add a few drops of their favorite essential oil to the detergent during the mixing process. If you are like me and still use a commercial fabric softener, then you can use that for an added scent. What I do is put this laundry soap in the laundry machine's dispenser and then add about a teaspoon of the fabric softener. This may seem to be unnecessary since I am also adding a regular measure of the same fabric softener to the machine's dispenser for the fabric softener, but honestly it really does help in adding a little more of that clean odor to the laundry that many of us are accustomed to from having used commercial laundry detergent - and I'm still saving a bundle of money.




Instead of using the Fels Naptha for an optional, more organic soap use




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