Frugal tip: homemade laundry soap

As a way to save money (along with couponing!) I've been making my own laundry detergent for well over a year, after watching the Duggar family on TLC making it.  I made another batch today and realized it might be something other thrifty couponers might be interested in, so I'm sharing it on the blog.  Here are your ingredients:

Everything is found inexpensively in the laundry aisle at Wegmans: Fels Naptha ($1.19), Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda ($3.49), and 20 Mule Team Borax ($3.99).  You'll need 1 bar of Fels Naptha each time you make the recipe, but after more than a year I'm still on my first boxes of washing soda and borax!  Since each batch makes 10 gallons of detergent, this ends up being really cheap and it lasts a long time.  Just a quick note: make sure you use washing soda, as baking soda will not work.

You will also need a 5-gallon bucket with a lid (I bought one at Home Depot) and a bunch of empty laundry detergent bottles.  If you don't mind using your everyday kitchen utensils, you'll also need a saucepan, cheese grater, ladle, and something to stir with.  I just wash my cheese grater really well after using, but I do use an old camping saucepan, ladle, and rubber spatula that I designate for detergent making.

Grate a bar of Felsa Naptha soap into a saucepan on the stove and add 4 cups of hot water.  Stir it continually until the soap dissolves and is no longer clumpy.  I find it takes about 5 minutes over medium-high heat.

Fill a 5-gallon bucket half full with hot water.  Add in the melted Fels Naptha along with 1 cup of Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda and 1/2 cup Borax.  Stir the mixture until the powders dissolve, then fill the rest of the bucket with more hot water.  Give it another stir, then cover the bucket and let it sit overnight.

The next day it will be thick (think when you cook a turkey and the fat in the juices left in the pan starts to solidify -- it will look kind of gross).  Stir it up to break up the chunks a bit.

Fill your empty detergent bottles half with water and half with the detergent mixture (I find cutting the top portion off a 2-liter bottle works great as a funnel along with using my old ladle to scoop up the detergent).  This recipe will make 10 gallons, so start saving your old empty detergent bottles ahead of time and/or ask friends and neighbors to save them for you.

Shake the detergent bottle each time you use it (you might still see some little chunks, but that's OK).  I have an old top-loading washing machine and using a standard detergent bottle capful for each load is plenty.  If you have a front-loader, you'll use less. 

Unlike most commercial detergents, this is not going to get all bubbly and soapy so don't feel like you need to keep adding more because you're not seeing bubbles during the wash and rinse cycles. 

It has a very mild, clean smell which we like.  If you prefer a stronger scent, you could add some essential oils.  Since we have sensitive skin issues and always used 'free and clear' detergents, I didn't want to add anything extra to ours.  Needless to say, this detergent works fine with everyone's skin in our house.

It might sound like a lot of work, but really it isn't.  And the payoff is great!