0 How to make laundry detergent

So as you all know I made a batch of soap (olive oil, castor oil, cocoa butter and lye mixture). I got about 12 bars of soap out of that batch so I decided to try my hand at making homemade laundry detergent.
Want to know how I made it? Okay here we go!

Ingredients:

2 bars of soap (you grate them), empty laundry detergent, pitcher,Borax 1 cup, baking soda 1 cup

This is a 9 gallon jug. I love this stuff! It has lasted me from March 2010 until now (December 2010) and I still have a lot left. (I poured it out into empty bottles)

Now here is where is gets un-homemade... I love Pine-Sol. It does a wonderful job in clothes. I love the smell and had to add 1 1/2 cups of it to my recipe. A lot of people add Oxi-Clean, vinegar, or Washing Soda to help "brighten" and get any extra stains out. Without any additives, this detergent is very gentle. It works great alone but, can use a little boost...




How to mix it all up:

*Take to 2 liters of boiling hot water (hot enough to melt the soap) and mix the soap in and stir until all of the soap is melted into liquid.

*Pour the "liquid soap" into a bucket. (I used a 5 gallon bucket)And mix in Borax and baking soda. This mixture may get very foamy. Mine foamed up quite a bit! I took me about 5 solid minutes to get everything dissolved.

*Add about 4 more liters of water and mix.

*Add Pine-Sol and mix.

To get it out of the bucket I used a pitcher (2 liter) and poured that into a measuring cup and pour that into the jug. Yeah... it took a while but, I got it all in there.

*Let the mixture sit over night before using. After a few days it will look like this:

A nice gelatinous mixture! Liquid laundry detergent! It took about 30 minutes to make this whole 6-7 liter batch of detergent! I use about 1/8 of a cup with each wash.

Now there are some cons to this detergent:

1. Very low sudsing- Now this may not matter you but, it does to me! I need suds and bubbles! So I add a small squirt of Purex washing detergent to each load just to get the bubbles (about a tablespoon).
2. Best if added to washer machine before you add clothes. I put in the detergent and let the washer fill up a little before I add the clothes. Seems to clean better that way because it gets evenly distributed.
3. Has no smell. If you don't add Pine-sol or some other scented additive, you will have no scent AT ALL. I need scent! I have to have scent!

But other than these 3 cons, this laundry detergent is fine for us. I only need to purchase each ingredient once a year (Pine-Sol and Borax) and I always have baking soda. I think this detergent will last me for about 4 months. I only do about 3 loads a week so yours may last more or less.

It cleaned my husbands ol stinky work clothes really well, better than any commercial laundry detergent we have tried. It really stripped the crud off of his pants! He was talking about how clean his uniform was all week!

I have never really had a problem with stains. I never pre-soak clothes and all stains usually come right out.

Now, even if you choose not to use this as your main detergent, it is a great addtive to your commercial laundry detergent. It will help your detergent stretch! If you had a jug of liquid detergent and added this homemade recipe to it, I bet it would last a whole year!

Enjoy! :)

0 I made my first batch of homemade lye soap!

I have never, ever been interested in making soap. I honestly thought it was the most boring thing to do..you had to let the soap cure for weeks before you could use it. And it was just soap. All I have been thinking about these last couple of weeks is making soap.

Re-batching...
Cold Process....
Hot Process... (You can use a crock pot!! Yes, crock pot!)
Melt and Pour...

I have learned so much!

So, Sunday night I made homemade bar soap! I used the hot process method in my crock pot. I cleaned it really well before and after. (just incase you were wondering...)

I used Olive oil, cocoa butter, castor oil, and the sodium hydroxide water mixture. It made a very creamy lye soap that has a nice stable lather.

Here is a picture of 4 bars from the batch, I made 2 lbs. which made 12 nice size bars.

And a close up of a bar

I did have a few bumps along the way. It was somewhat trial and error but, the great thing is that it is almost impossible to ruin soap.

Here is a detailed description of how to make hot process soap: Hot Process Soap

Some tips I found useful:

• For creamy soap, use a butter like shea butter or cocoa butter.
• A stick blender is key to not having to stir for long amount of time.
• For your first batch keep things simple. Fragrance oils and too many extra can can leave you confused when something goes wrong and make things harder to fix.
• Don't rush it! Just mix and wait. Mix and wait.  Eventually, things will set up.
• Don't be scared of the lye! Yes, lye is caustic and can harm you but, if you're a nervous wreck, you can harm yourself!

Hot process soap is ready to use within 24 hours but, the longer you let the soap cure the harder the bar will get and last in the shower.

I plan to cut up a few bars tonight and make laundry detergent. I found a box of Borax at Wal-Mart for about $3 but, no washing soda so I'll use baking soda. I'm going to make the liquid detergent.

I have already started using half of one bar for washing dishes and it makes my dishes shine!!


I'll make a post soon of all the sites I looked through and videos I watched so you can make your own soap too!!

0 So I'm a mixologist now...

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Not the bartender kind...I have started mixing up my own hair care and house hold products.

After looking online and doing some research on ingredients and DIY cleaners, I have found that most cleaners have the same base. Most of the ingredients you need to make your own products are probably in your kitchen or bathroom cabinets!

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I think that even if you don't make your own products, knowing how to make them is a great asset because you never know when you may get into a crunch and not be able to make it to the store or if you just want to be creative one day! Learning how to do for yourself is something no one can ever take away from you.

As I find them, I will be sharing recipes that would be great bases, you can add your own oils, fragrance, powders, etc. Here is one for....



Laundry Detergent:

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1 bar of grated/ finely chopped soap
1 cup Washing Soda
1 cup Borax

Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl. If your bar soap flakes aren't very fine resulting in a chunky powder, you can put the whole mix in the blender for a few minutes. Add your oils and give it one last mix.

Tips:

• To avoid causing soap buildup in your washer, make sure you use a all natural bar of soap that has very little oil. A soap like Dove or something wouldn't work. 
• You can eliminate the bar soap altogether if you use something like OxyClean. You just mix in 1 cup OxyClean in the place of the bar soap.
• If you clothes aren't coming out as bright as you would like you can add salt (1 cup) and or baking soda to your mix. A recipe of salt, baking soda and bar soap will also work well as detergent.
• To help the soap dissolve in cold water, make sure you grate the soap into very fine pieces or blend it for a few minutes.
• To make liquid detergent from this, just boil 3 or so gallons of water and pour the mix in, let it sit overnight and in the morning you should have thick liquid detergent. *for this you must use bar soap

Look up some videos on youtube to see different recipes.  Here are some that I found useful:

Pinkyhasabrain- Homemade Powdered Detergent

Tsdvideos- Liquid Detergent (does comparison)

If you're hesitant about making your own detergent just remember that most detergents have the same basic ingredients, so just tweak it and add what you like and experiment. Also, keep in mind that people have been washing clothes before there was Gain, Tide, Sun, OxyClean, etc. if they could do it and make it work so can you!

*I haven't tried this recipe yet, I plan to try one later on today with salt, baking soda and a bar of soap. I'll let you all know how it turns out. I'll be using on my daughters stanky (yes, stAnky) onesies...if it can clean those it's a keeper!