Home Made Laundry Detergent

[Shiloh]

The thing is drhall, there may not have been a lot of money for those choosing to live a subsistence or simple rural lifestyle.
You could save money here to be used for machine or auto parts.

Shiloh

[Shiloh]

Shiloh,

I have collected a couple over the years. The book Fortunes in Formulas is a very good one. They change some over the years. I have them from the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. They can often be fount on Amazon. I have a duplicate from the late 40's around somewhere. PM me if you can't find one.

The thing is drhall, there may not have been a lot of money for those choosing to live a subsistence or simple rural lifestyle.
You could save money here to be used for machine or auto parts. "The Whole Earth Catalog" comes to mind, but there was another resource that escapes me.

Shiloh

[phonejack]

My wife makes the same thing, only keeps in dry form. The fels naphtha smells great. I frequently grate that for her. Sure works better than store bought! + rating

[Gibbs44]

The wife's been making this stuff for about two years. I like it much better than the stinky stuff from the store. It seems to work pretty well, cheap too, or else we wouldn't do it.

She also says she breaks it into small pieces and then runs it through the food processor instead of grating it by hand.

[dmclark523]

Been using this now for about a year. I can attest to it working very well. However, if you are looking for that 'fresh flowers' smell, look elsewhere. This stuff doesn't give off any type of scent.

[jaysouth]

My wife, bless her frugal german upbringing, has been making laundry soap for some time. Thanks for the infor for making it into a liquid thought. It appears to be the same recipe except for rendering it liquid.

When I was in the Army in Germany in the early 60s, we produced suds for washing pots and pan in the messhall by running hot water over GI soap bars. We put a wire bail on an empty #10 can and punched holes in the bottom. The caustic soap went into the bottom and the bail hung on the hot water tap. When you turned on the hot water, suds for cleaning, for another five minutes.

Lots of things about the old days that I do not wistfully daydream about.

[armedmoose]

I use a powdered version of this homemade laundry detergent. Used for almost 4 years on cloth diapers, talk about mess and stains . I have 3 young ones, 2 still in diapers. I have never had a diaper rash on any of my girls, which is different than the horror stories I hear from other parent friends.

These recipes work great! My Tips to add:

• If you are lazy like me, use a food processor to grade the soap with grater then add the Washing Soda and Borax and mix with mixing blade.
• I prefer "ZOTE" clothes washing bar soap, used to be sold in Walmart but no longer, ACE Hardware has it as well as Ethnic (Mexican) Grocery Stores. It comes in different smells.
• Washing Soda is sometimes hard to find, Not all Walmarts carry it. But Ace Hardware you can ship to store for free.
• You can add essential oils like Lavender or Citrus to change the smell (or add a smell) if you desire smelly laundry.
• I preferred to make it dry since I had one of those Front Loading HE Washing machines and it has a water sprayer in the soap dispensing box, and I could make 2-3 batches in the food processor at once.

[alha]

Hi guys, thought I'd jump in for a sec to pass on an opinion based upon what I've found at work, I do appliance repair for a living. One thing about soap and front loading washers, is that you only need a small amount. At least when it comes to commercial brands like Tide, etc, you only need to use about a tablespoon, and it has to be HE style. You may need to either pre-treat or use slightly more if you have really dirty clothes, or hard water, but for normal everyday non-"dirty" clothes, about 1 Tbsp is all you need. If you have a top loader, then you need to use more, because they are much less efficient and use a ton more water. As for power vs. liquid, I prefer liquid, because it disperses better. I can't tell you how many times I have worked on a customers front loader where they use powder, and when I opened the dispenser door, it was all coated with crusty soap, because the water blasting into the dispenser sprays it everywhere. One big issue with that, is that it brings soap in every time it fills with water, which you certainly don't want in the rinse cycle.

About stinking machines, this is caused by using too much soap. Some ppl unfortunately read the directions on the soap bottle, and use Way too much. Then within a year or so they find mold growing on their boot seal, and it's also growing in their tubs and tub to pump hoses. It's caused by too much soap, and it not rinsing out properly. I also do an extra rinse on every load I run, have for 15 years and never had an issue with odor in mine. With front loaders, you Don't want to see it sudsing up when it is washing, if you do, then you're using too much or the wrong type of soap. One easy way to tell if you are using too much soap in front loader is to run a cycle with nothing in it and no soap, pick the longest, hottest cycle it has, and watch it run. If at about 20-40 mins into the cycle you see anything other than hot water splashing around, you're using too much soap.

This is becoming a book, I'll leave it at that, but if you have a question about what I've mentioned, please feel free to ask, I'm happy to try and help. Especially in this section.

[CATS]

How hard is this mix on bright colors? Does it cause the colors to fade faster/slower? How easy is this on wool how easy is this on delicates? Has anyone noticed that it is more/less irritating to their skin?
Thanks

[sparkz]

JonB where do ya buy a 5gal bucket of landey soap at (Stores)??
"wind fresh" powder laundry detergent?
Sean and I are Crusty guys,, hahah
and with all the money we are gona save on casting our own,, we should be rich very soon but untill that day we need to find deals like that. lol,,


also if I made this dry mix,, how do ya mesure it it would be like a few spoons haha
\so do ya strech it with someting?

I have found the last needed wash soda now tho so i am ready to go just thinking about a dry type has me thinkin easyer to store


ok Boys and Gals

Il be a watchin


Patrick

[drhall762]

CATS - I use it on everything. Have not seen any issue with colors. My wool garments that are machine washable do fine. I have some that are not but I seldom if ever wear them anymore so I don't know. I have less skin irritation than I did with Tide.

[BSalty]

My wife has been making this same thing only in dry form since about Nov. It works very well.

[a.squibload]

Heard anything about a washing soda conspiracy?
Walmart shelves have a place for it, always empty
(several stores).
Finally found some at Ace, will try the recipe.

[BrassMagnet]

Heard anything about a washing soda conspiracy?
Walmart shelves have a place for it, always empty
(several stores).
Finally found some at Ace, will try the recipe.

Too many people wanting the product to save money. Too little store shelf space devoted to washinging soda combined with just-in-time (JIT) delivery. If enough is sold for a long enough time, they will increase the shelf space or the stocking quantity.
I ran into that with split peas. After a year, they increased their shelf stock from 20 to 30. I even had their JIT restocking time figured out.

[a.squibload]

Did it, turned out gloppy, like soup with blobs of jello.
Used a big funnel to pour into a soap jug.
After shaking it pours through the valve just fine.
Now to find some dirty clothes!

Edit: ran a load, works good &
no perfumy smell!
Will separate while sitting,
need to shake it each time.

[jimgun]

so will this recipe work in a HE front loader? as long as I am asking, maybe someone can explain the difference between an HE and standard washer? if it will work, i would guess a liquid would be the better product? thanks

[a.squibload]

I think a front-loader uses less water.
Don't know why this stuff wouldn't work.
An appliance repair guy said front-loader seals wear out
in a couple years and are very expensive to replace.

[hugh]

wife has been doing this for about 6 years now.it works great.thanks for posting this thread great idea

[fatelk]

Another plus for this stuff if for people with skin conditions. My son has some health issues and some allergies.

One thing that was a real bother for him was rough skin. We called it "alligator skin" and would sometimes rub lotion on him (he's 7). One of his doctors recommended special lotions, and my wife even tried several different brands of laundry detergent; unscented, etc..

A year or so ago she started making and using this home-made detergent. Within a week or two we noticed that his skin had cleared up, no more itchy, scratchy scales. His skin has been fine ever since. I was amazed. He was obviously allergic to something in the store bought detergent. He takes a couple different heavy-duty medications for arthritis, so clearing up the skin thing was a wonderful thing for him.

[Twinkiethekid]

Have to give this a shot, thanks for the recipe!