Homemade Laundry Soap

The 4 laundry baskets in the house are overflowing. It's time to declare this day Laundry Day. I throw the first load in the washer and begin adding the laundry soap. It sputters and spits and laughs in my face.

Later that day, my sweet friend, Amanda, generously handed over a huge baggie of homemade laundry soap just in time.

Why have I waited so long to join the homemade soap world?

I had some trouble with the Fels-naptha dissolving in my front loader so I decided it was time to do some research and make up my own once payday finally arrived. Amanda sent me the recipe she used, I read through a million comments on that blog and several others, and decided on this...

Ingredients:

4lb box borax
55oz box super washing soda
4lb box (or, in my case, 3 boxes that equal 4lbs) baking soda
2 canisters oxi clean
3 bars ivory soap (only 2 are pictured)
1 bottle Purex Crystals for scent

Microwave the soap one bar at a time for about 2 minutes. The kids and I enjoyed watching it turn from this...

to this...

Then to make sure it would have no trouble dissolving, I stuffed the puff into the food processor til it looked like this...

I'll tell ya, it was annoying cleaning out the microwave and food processor but I've had no trouble with this soap dissolving!

Throw this and the rest of the ingredients into a huge bucket and stir.

All I use is 1Tbsp per load that I throw directly into the drum before the clothes. I have been very happy with the results so far! 

And best of all, I spent a total of $24.01. 6-8 months of laundry soap for 24 bucks?? Yes, please.

I don't have a cute jar with "laundry" printed on it because we're broke. But that will come eventually!

Feel free to ask me questions or visit the blog with the original recipe and read through comments for answers.

Thank you, Amanda!

UPDATE (3-12-13): I recently put together my second batch. I left out the Purex crystals because of my daughter's skin reaction, and because it wasn't strong enough to leave the clothes smelling fresh once they were cleaned and dried.
I also decided to try Fels Naptha again, this time putting it into my food processor to make sure it was small enough to dissolve well. So far so good! I needed something stronger than the ivory soap, especially for Derek's work clothes!